Europe Bows to Muslim Demands to Limit Free Speech

Wed, September 19, 2012

by:

Soeren Kern

Protests over an American-made anti-Islamic YouTube film, Innocence of Muslims, have spread to Europe. Muslim rioters have clashed with police in several European cities, and more demonstrations are being planned. The protests are part of widespread anger across the Muslim world about the amateur film, which ridicules Islam and depicts the Muslim Prophet Mohammed as a fraud, a madman and a sexual deviant.

Muslims in many European countries are calling on governments to outlaw the controversial film. They are also pressing elected officials to enact anti-blasphemy laws that would criminalize the criticism of Islam. As most European countries lack American-like First Amendment protections, the momentum is building for the imposition of legal curbs on free speech when such speech is perceived to be offensive to Islam.

In Belgium, police using pepper spray  clash with protesters in Belgium batons arrested more than 200 Muslimsin the northern city of Antwerp after clashes at a demonstration against the film. The protest in the Borgerhout district of the city was organized by an Islamic fundamentalist group called Sharia4Belgium. The protest was organized via a text message which read: “We are ready to work with our souls and hearts to fight for our beloved prophet, even if death comes to meet us. Whoever has love for the Prophet must be present.” In Brussels, police arrested more than 30 individuals who participated in two separate protests — one in the Sint-Joost-ten-Node district, and another one in downtown Brussels near the American embassy.

In Britain, some 300 Muslims protested in central London outside the American Embassy. The crowd included many radical Muslims associated with the hardline group, Hizb ut-Tahrir; they shouted slogans and held placards, saying, “America — Get Out of Muslim Lands.” The gathering, which consisted mostly of men but alsoomen and children, listened to speakers who condemned the film, U.S. foreign policy and the “oppression” of Muslims.

In France, police in Paris arrested 152 Muslims for taking part in an unauthorized, impromptu protest on September 15 at the Place de la Concorde near the American Embassy; there were a number of clashes, with four police officers hurt.

French Interior Minister Manuel Valls said he would prevent any further anti-American demonstrations sparked by the anti-Islam film. “I have issued instructions so that this does not happen again,” Valls told France 2 television. “These protests are forbidden. Any incitement to hatred must be fought with the greatest firmness.” Valls also said that among the roughly 250 protesters, there were some groups that “advocate radical Islam.”

Nevertheless, Muslims have now issued a call via text messages and social media for new protests to be held on Saturday, September 22, at 2pm at the Trocadero district in Paris. The President of the anti-immigrant National Front party, Marine Le Pen, said the protests mark the beginning of a process of “intimidation” by Muslims.

In Germany, major Muslim umbrella organizations have warned that the movie could “endanger the public peace” and lead to “street massacres” in German cities. The chairman of Germany’s Central Council of Muslims, Aiman ​​Mazyek, has alsocalled for a legal ban on the film within the Federal Republic. “I do think that we must use all legal means to ban the film,” Mazyek said in an interview with ARD television. Mazyek continued that the video had the goal of “sowing discord and hatred,” and therefore “I would use all means possible to outlaw the film.”

German political leaders are now equivocating about their commitment to free speech. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, commenting on the anti-Islam movie, said, “I can imagine there would be good reasons to outlaw the film” – a reversal of her statement of just two years ago, when, commenting on the Danish cartoon controversy, she declared: “Free speech is one of the greatest treasures of our society.”

Separately, Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said he would consider all legal options to ban public showings of the anti-Islamic film. He said Islamic extremists such as the Salafists are likely to incite violent protests within Germany, which Friedrich called a “highly dangerous” situation.

Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has also pleaded for a ban on the movie, arguing that freedom of expression has its limits. “The abuse of a religion that is likely to disturb the public peace is forbidden to us,” he said in an interview onDeutschlandfunk German radio. He also argued that a ban on the film would send the message that “Germany does not stand behind right-wing radicals who insult other religions.”

Section 166 of the German Penal Code already restricts free speech when it involves “insulting religion or belief.” In a landmark Section 166 case in 2006, for example, a German retiree in Lüdinghausen was sentenced to 12 months in prison for writing the words “Koran, the holy Koran” on toilet paper and mailing it local mosques.

In Norway, Muslims are planning to hold several demonstrations to protest the anti-Islam movie, including one event due to take place in front of the American embassy in Oslo on September 21. Oslo police said they intend to approve the application for the embassy demonstration, but will also be on hand themselves.

In Spain, the national Islamic Commission, a Muslim umbrella group, says it is organizing events in all major Spanish cities to “raise awareness about Islam and its prophet in a truthful manner.” The group has also asked the United Nations to issue a resolution calling for the “respect of all religious beliefs.”

In Switzerland, Muslims in the city of Bern have received authorization from city officials to hold a demonstration near the American embassy on September 22. The event is being organized by the Central Islamic Council of Switzerland, a conservative Islamic umbrella group, together with two other Islamic organizations. At least 200 individuals are expected to protest “for our Prophet Mohammed and the protection of religious feelings.”

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.

This article appeared originally on GatestoneInstitute.org

Why Muslims Must Hate Jews

August 3, 2012

By Nonie Darwish 

Recently, a Pakistani religious leader, Pirzada Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai, said: “When the Jews are wiped out … the sun of peace [will] begin to rise on the entire world.”  The same preaching is routinely done not only by clerics, but by politicians — in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and elsewhere.  This is not just Ahmedinijad; it is at the heart of Islamic theology that world peace will be established only when all the Jews are wiped from the earth.  But few people in Western media are alarmed by this kind of rhetoric or care to expose this dreadful dark side of Islam’s obsession with Jew-hatred.

I do not believe that one has to be an authority on human behavior or group thinking to find out the obvious pathology in Islamic Jew-hatred.  It is time for all of us to uncover and expose this atrocity against the Jewish people.  We owe that to humanity and the truth.

No true Muslim can see that such hatred is unbecoming and unholy for a world religion to focus on and that the credibility of Islam is tarnished by such hatred.  No Muslim is allowed to go far enough to self-analyze or ask why such hatred.  Muslims defend Jew-hatred by claiming that Jews betrayed Muhammad and thus deserve of this kind of treatment.  Even when I was a Muslim, I believed that the one-sided story against Jews by Islam was enough to justify all the killing, terror, lies, and propaganda by Islamic leaders against Jews.  To the average Muslim, routinely cursing Jews in mosques feels normal and even holy!

After a lot of thinking, analysis, research, and writing, I discovered that Jew -atred in Islam is an essential foundation to the Islamic belief system that Muslims cannot seem to be able to rid themselves of.  Jew-hatred masks an existential problem in Islam.  Islam is terrified of the Jews, and the number-one enemy of Islam is the truth, which must be constantly covered at any cost.  It does not matter how many Muslim men, women, and children die in the process of saving Islam’s reputation.  The number-one duty of Muslims is to protect the reputation of Islam and Mohammad.  But why would a religion burden its followers like that?  This is why:

When Mohammed embarked on his mission to spread Islam, his objective was to create a uniquely Arabian religion, one created by an Arab prophet, which reflected the Arabian values and culture.  Yet to obtain legitimacy, he had to link it to the two previous Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Christianity.  He expected the Jewish tribes who lived in Arabia to declare him their Messiah and thereby bring him more legitimacy with Arabs, especially with his own tribe in Mecca, the Quraish.  Because his own tribe had rejected and ridiculed him, Mohammed needed the approval of the Jews, whom he called the people of the book.  But the conversion of Jews to Islam was part of the scenario that Mohammed had to accomplish in order to prove to Meccans that they had made a mistake by rejecting him.

That was one of the reasons Mohammed chose to migrate to Medina, a town that had predominantly been settled by Jewish tribes and a few impoverished Arabs who lived around the Jews.  The Jews allowed Mohammed to move in.  At the beginning, the Koran of Mecca was full of appeals to the Jews, who were then described as “guidance and light” (5:44) and a “righteous” people (6:153-154), who “excelled the nations” (45:16).  But when the Jews rejected the appeasement and refused to convert to Islam, Mohammed simply and completely flipped.  The Quran changed from love to threats and then pure hatred, cursing, and commandments to kill Jews.  Rejection by the Jews became an intolerable obsession with Mohammed.

Not only did the Jews reject him, but their prosperity made Mohammed extremely envious.  The Jewish Arabian tribes earned their living from legitimate and successful business, but Mohammed earned his living and wealth through warfare — by attacking Arab tribes, some of whom were from his own tribe — and trade caravans, seizing their wealth and property.  That did not look good for a man who claimed to be a prophet of God.  The mere existence of the Jews made Mohammed look bad, which led Mohammed to unspeakable slaughter, beheading of 600 to 900 Jewish men of one tribe, and taking their women and children as slaves.  Mohammed had the first pick of the prettiest woman as his sex slave.  All of this senseless slaughter of the Jews was elaborately documented in Islamic books on the life of Mohammed — not as something to be ashamed of, but as justified behavior against evil people.

One does not have to be psychiatrist to see the obvious: that Mohammad was a tormented man after the massacre he orchestrated and forced his fighters to undertake to empower and to enrich himself and his religion.  To reduce his torment, he needed everyone around him, as well as future generations, to participate in the genocide against the Jews, the only people whom he could not control.  An enormous number of verses in the Koran encouraged Mohammed’s fighters to fight, kill, and curse Muslim fighters who wanted to escape fighting and killing Jews.  The Quran is full of promises of all kinds of pleasure in heaven to those who followed Mohammed’s killing spree and curses and condemnation to those who chose to escape from fighting.  Muslims were encouraged to feel no hesitation or guilt for the genocide because it was not they who did it, but rather “Allah’s hand.”

Mohammed never got over his anger, humiliation, and rejection by “the people of the book” and went to his grave tormented and obsessed that some Jews were still alive.  On his deathbed, Mohammed entrusted Muslims to kill Jews wherever they found them, which made this a “holy commandment” that no Muslim can reject.  Muslims who wrote sharia understood how Mohammed was extremely sensitive to criticism, and that is why criticizing Mohammed became the highest crime in Islam that will never be forgiven even if the offender repents.  Mohammed’s message on his deathbed was not for his followers to strive for holiness, peace, goodness, and to treat their neighbors as themselves, but rather a commandment for Muslims to continue the killing and the genocide against the Jews.  Killing thus became a holy act of obedience to Mohammed and Allah himself.

Mohammed portrayed himself as a victim of Jews, and Muslims must avenge him until judgment day.  With all Arab power, money, and influence around the world today, they still thrive at portraying themselves as victims.  Sharia also codified into law the duty of every Muslim to defend Mohammed’s honor and Islam with his own blood, and allowed the violation of many commandments if it is for the benefit of defending Islam and Mohammed.  Thus, Muslims are carrying a huge burden, a holy burden, to defend Mohammed with their blood, and in doing so they are allowed to kill, lie, cheat, slander, and mislead.

Mohammed must have felt deep and extreme shame after what he had done to the Jews, and thus a very good reason had to be found to explain away his genocide.  By commanding Muslims to continue the genocide for him, even after his death, Mohammad expanded the shame to cover all Muslims and Islam itself.  All Muslims were commanded to follow Mohammed’s example and chase the Jews wherever they went.  One hundred years after Mohammed’s death, Arabs occupied Jerusalem and built Al Aqsa mosque right on top of the Jewish Temple ruins, the holiest spot of the Jews.  Muslims thought they had erased all memory of Jewish existence.

Mohammed’s genocide of the Jews of Arabia became an unholy dark mark of shame in Islamic history, and that shame, envy, and anger continues to get the best of Muslims today.  In the eyes of Mohammed and Muslims, the mere existence of the Jewish people, let alone an entire Jewish state, delegitimizes Islam and makes Mohammed look more like a mass murderer than like a prophet.  For Muslims to make peace with Jews and acknowledge that Jews are humans who deserve the same rights as everyone else would have a devastating effect on how Muslims view their religion, their history, and the actions of their prophet.

Islam has a major existential problem.  By no will of their own, the Jews found themselves in the middle of this Islamic dilemma.  Islam must justify the genocide that Mohammad waged against the Jews.  Mohammad and Muslims had two choices: either the Jews are evil sub-humans, apes, pigs, and enemies of Allah, a common description of Jews still heard regularly in Middle Eastern mosques today, or Mohammad was a genocidal warlord not fit to be a prophet of God — a choice that would mean the end of Islam.

Then and now, Mohammad and Muslims clearly chose the first worldview and decreed that any hint of the second must be severely punished.  Jews must remain eternally evil enemies of Islam if Islam is to remain legitimate.  There is no third solution to save the core of Islam from collapsing; either Mohammed was evil, or the Jews were evil.  Any attempt to forgive, humanize, or live peacefully with Jews is considered treason against Islam.  How can Muslims forgive the Jews and then go back to their mosques, only to read their prophet’s words, telling them they must kill Jews wherever they find them?  It does not add up, if someone wants to remain Muslim.

That is why the number-one enemy of Islam is, and must remain, the truth.  If the truth exposes Islam’s unjustified Jew-hatred, Muslims will be left with an empty shell of a religion, a religion whose prophet was a murderer, a thief, and a warlord.  Without Jew-hatred, Islam would self-destruct.

Nonie Darwish author is the author of The Devil We Don’t Know.

(See also: “Fed to the Sharks by Political Correctness“)

U.S. Move to Give Egypt $450 Million in Aid Meets Resistance

 

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September 28, 2012

nyt U.S. Move to Give Egypt $450 Million in Aid Meets Resistance

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By STEVEN LEE MYERS

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<nyt_correction_top>The Obama administration notified Congress on Friday that it would provide Egypt’s new government an emergency cash infusion of $450 million, but the aid immediately encountered resistance from a prominent lawmaker wary of foreign aid and Egypt’s new course under the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The aid is part of the $1 billion in assistance that the Obama administration has pledged to Egypt to bolster its transition to democracy after the overthrow last year of the former president,Hosni Mubarak. Its fate, however, was clouded by concerns over the new government’s policies and, more recently, the protests that damaged the American Embassy in Cairo.

The United States Agency for International Development notified Congress of the cash infusion on Friday morning during the pre-election recess, promptly igniting a smoldering debate over foreign aid and the administration’s handling of crises in the Islamic world.

An influential Republican lawmaker, Representative Kay Granger of Texas, immediately announced that she would use her position as chairwoman of the House appropriations subcommittee overseeing foreign aid to block the distribution of the money. She said the American relationship with Egypt “has never been under more scrutiny” than it is in the wake of the election of President Mohamed Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“I am not convinced of the urgent need for this assistance and I cannot support it at this time,” Ms. Granger said in a statement that her office issued even before the administration announced the package.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking at a meeting of the Group of 8 nations in New York, said on Friday that the world needed to do more to support the governments that have emerged from the Arab Spring uprisings, including those in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

“The recent riots and protests throughout the region have brought the challenge of transition into sharp relief,” Mrs. Clinton said, without mentioning the assistance to Egypt specifically. “Extremists are clearly determined to hijack these wars and revolutions to further their agendas and ideology, so our partnership must empower those who would see their nations emerge as true democracies.”

The debate comes as the issue of foreign aid in general made an unexpected appearance in the presidential campaign.

In a speech in New York on Tuesday, Mr. Obama’s Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, called for revamping assistance to focus more on investments in the private sector than on direct aid — a shift administration officials have said is under way.

While Mr. Romney did not address aid to Egypt directly, he cited Mr. Morsi’s membership in the Muslim Brotherhood as one of the alarming developments in the Middle East, along with the war in Syria, Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and the killing of the American ambassador to Libya.

“A temporary aid package can jolt an economy,” he said. “It can fund some projects. It can pay some bills. It can employ some people some of the time. But it can’t sustain an economy — not for long. It can’t pull the whole cart, because at some point the money runs out.”

The $1 billion in aid, announced by Mr. Obama in May 2011, was initially intended to relieve Egypt’s debts to the United States, though negotiations stalled during the country’s turbulent transition from military rule to the election of Mr. Morsi this summer.

In recent weeks, negotiations over the assistance picked up pace, and the administration decided to provide $450 million instead, including $190 million immediately, because the country’s economic crisis has become acute, with an estimated budget shortfall of $12 billion.

The assistance outlined in letters to Congress on Friday would be contingent on Egypt’s setting in motion economic and budgetary changes that the International Monetary Fund is now negotiating as part of a $4.8 billion loan.

The administration has also thrown its support behind that loan, and officials said they hoped it would be completed before the end of the year. A $260 million infusion would come when the much larger loan is completed, according to officials familiar with the package. By law, all assistance to Egypt is contingent on the country’s meeting certain requirements, including adherence to basic democratic values and the Camp David peace treaty with Israel.

The protests over an anti-Muslim video and the storming of the American Embassy in Cairo on Sept. 11 came even as senior White House and State Department officials led a large business delegation to promote economic assistance and trade in Egypt.

Mr. Morsi’s slow response to the protests raised concerns in Washington, although administration officials later cited improved cooperation over the embassy’s security.

The $1 billion in assistance has been cobbled together from funds already appropriated by Congress, but the administration is required to notify lawmakers of its intention to release any of the funds. Ms. Granger presumably can put a hold on that release and pursue legislation to reverse the appropriation.

Mrs. Clinton lobbied lawmakers last week during closed-door briefings that focused on the tumult across the region, including the attack at the American diplomatic mission in Libya that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

In addition to the $1 billion in assistance, the administration is working with Egypt to provide $375 million in financing and loan guarantees for American financiers who invest in Egypt and a $60 million investment fund for Egyptian businesses. All of that comes on top of $1.3 billion in military aid that the United States provides Egypt each year.

A senior State Department official said that the administration would consult with members of Congress in the days ahead “to make the case that this budget support is firmly in U.S. interests in seeing peace, stability and democracy in Egypt and the wider neighborhood.”

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Barack Obama’s Cowardly “Munich Moment”

SEPTEMBER 23, 2012 BY DR. MARVIN FOLKERTSMA 14 COMMENT.

In September 1938, the British prime minister had a problem. The Third Reich’s psychopath-in-chief was scorching the airwaves in one of his trademark rants, this time about the supposed oppression of Germans living in Czechoslovakia. He threatened war unless Western nations caved to his demands, which was the last thing the British and the French wanted, with torrid memories of the last European conflagration still burning in their thoughts. Thus, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French leader Edouard Daladier agreed to meet with Hitler and his ally, Benito Mussolini, in Munich on September 29, 1938. The rest, as they say, is history.

But what a notorious hunk of history this was. On an earlier excursion to Germany, Chamberlain was greeted with flowers and gifts and a band playing “God Save the King”, which seemed to justify his departing comment that his “objective is peace in Europe. I trust this trip is the way to that peace.” The result was a short-term peace in exchange for a German slice of Czechoslovakia, now virtually defenseless after being forced to relinquish the Sudetenland to the Reich at a meeting to which they were not even invited. No matter; Chamberlain still returned to his homeland waving a piece of paper that fluttered in the wind while he declared that he had achieved “peace for our time” to relieved audiences in Britain. This was Chamberlain’s Munich Moment.

What transpired afterwards has entered history books and international relations seminars on the object lessons of appeasing an aggressor. After promising not to demand any more territorial concessions, Hitler ordered his armies to absorb the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, after which the German Fuhrer made fresh demands for new territorial concessions in Europe, this time against Poland. And this time, German armies invaded their isolated victim, instigating declarations of war by Great Britain and France, which had learned their lessons from a year earlier.

Fast forward to the present era, with a different location and a freshly minted Western leader, President Barack Obama, who declared in Cairo in 2009: “I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition.” Fair enough, and we may suppose, approximately equivalent to achieving “peace for our time” between Islam and America. However conceived, Obama’s Cairo address may now be remembered as his Munich Moment.

Then in September 2012, things began to get sour, though it took a little longer than the Munich betrayal—but then, Hitler was a gangster in a hurry, whereas radical Islamists believe they have plenty of time on their hands and that history is on their side. But even history has to be pushed now and then, which in this case resulted in the death of four American embassy personnel in Libya, including the incomparable Ambassador Christopher Stevens in a premeditated assault (and flag-burning frenzies of anti-Americanism raging throughout the Muslim world from Tunisia to Indonesia.)

Based on past experience, one could believe that events in the summer and fall of 2012 constituted teachable moments, just as German perfidy and aggression in 1939 convinced western leaders that Hitler was a fraud. Instead, the American embassy in Cairo responded with another Munich Moment, by issuing a statement of such breathtaking pusillanimity that one could wonder which side in the issue they actually represented. “The embassy of the United States … condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims,” it declared, referring to a video trailer produced in America that mocked the prophet Muhammad. So, that was it, declared an official organ of the American government—just like Hitler’s aggression against the Czechs and Poles was in response to German citizens being treated poorly. Even Chamberlain eventually saw through that. His Munich Moment had passed; recognition of reality set in.

Which is not to say that America should declare war against some Middle Eastern country. But it is to say that the Obama administration must recognize, as the French and British did in 1939, that hurt Muslim feelings have no more to do with radical Islamic hatred of the United States than mythical complaints about Germans under foreign rule had for Hitler; both were merely pretexts, excuses for aggression that would have taken place anyway. It also means that anti-Americanism in the Islamic world is going to get worse, not better, and that the United States had better be prepared for it with firm respect for our country and American interests abroad. In this case, responding with a cut-off of foreign aid to countries that murder or abuse Americans is a good start; perhaps stronger measures should follow. But issuing gag-inducing statements of apology and adhering to an untenable policy is out of the question.

In short, American foreign policy cannot be based on endless repetitions of a Munich Moment.

 

Dr. Marvin Folkertsma is a professor of political science and fellow for American studies with The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. The author of several books, his latest release is a high-energy novel titled “The Thirteenth Commandment.”

©2012 The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College

Uh, Guys? Obama’s Really Sorry

 

• BEST OF THE WEB TODAY
• Updated September 21, 2012, 4:16 p.m. ET

Your tax dollars at work, paying to air a message of weakness.

 

By JAMES TARANTO

Call it a video reprise of the Obama Apology Tour: “The American Embassy in Islamabad, in a bid to tamp down public rage over the anti-Islam film produced in the U.S., is spending $70000 to air an ad on Pakistani television that features President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton denouncing the video,” the Associated Press reports.

The 30-second spot was released yesterday and is running “on seven Pakistani networks.” It’s also getting some free airtime here in the U.S.; yesterday Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” ran it before an interview with Sarah Palin (who was, not unpredictably, critical).

The ad rehearses, with Urdu subtitles, last week’s statements from Obama and Mrs. Clinton in which he declares that America “respects all faiths” and she asserts: “Let me state very clearly, and I hope it is obvious, that the United States government had absolutely nothing to do with this video. We absolutely reject its content and message.”

“Muslim protests against insults to the Prophet Mohammad turned violent in Pakistan, where at least 15 people were killed on Friday,” Reuters reports:

Tens of thousands of people joined protests encouraged by the government in several cities including Islamabad, Karachi, Peshawar, Lahore, Multan and Muzaffarabad.

The bloodiest unrest erupted in the southern city of Karachi, where 10 people were killed, including three policemen, and more than 100 wounded, according to Allah Bachayo Memon, spokesman of the chief minister of Sindh province. He said about 20 vehicles, three banks and five cinemas were set on fire.

Crowds set two cinemas ablaze and ransacked shops in the northwestern city of Peshawar, clashing with riot police who fired tear gas. At least five people were killed.

In Mardan in the northwest, police said a Christian church was set on fire and several people hurt.

Mohammed Tariq Khan, a protester in Islamabad, said: “Our demand is that whoever has blasphemed against our holy Prophet should be handed over to us so we can cut him up into tiny pieces in front of the entire nation.”

The State Department’s ad campaign looks like one of the greatest marketing efforts since New Coke.

The Reuters report underscores the basic conceptual problems with the Obama-Clinton apology. For one thing, it assumes that militant Islamic anti-Americanism is based on essentially the same critique as the multicultural left’s anti-Americanism. But how is the claim that America “respects all faiths” supposed to appease people who burn churches? Nor is the secretary’s assurance that the U.S. government “had absolutely nothing to do with this video” responsive to the demand that its maker “be handed over to us so we can cut him up into tiny pieces.”

It seems likely that this Mohammed Tariq Khan faults the U.S. government for failing to do so. Now of course Americans understand what Mrs. Clinton means when she says the government has nothing to do with it. The video’s makers are alive and free not because the government has permitted it but because the Constitution prohibits the government from doing anything else. Don’t blame Obama, don’t even blame George W. Bush. Blame James Madison.

Associated PressRioters in Pakistan today

What message does the ad actually send the Mohammed Tariq Khans? On the one hand, a message of weakness: Assemble a big enough mob, kill enough people, burn enough flags and churches, and you too can grab the attention of the most powerful man and woman in the world. On the other hand, a taunt. If Obama and Mrs. Clinton really mean it, the Khans must think, why haven’t they presented the video makers for public mincing? The State Department’s ad contains no answer to that crucial question.

If our government is going to run an ad to educate Pakistanis (or whoever) about American attitudes, wouldn’t it make sense to include an explanation as to why America’s leaders cannot and will not enforce the mob’s standards of blasphemy? To an American, what’s objectionable about this ad isn’t so much the apology for the video’s offense as the abject failure to defend basic American principles of freedom. That same failure makes the ad less than worthless as an educational tool.

 

TOP MUSLIM CALLS FOR U.N. TO END FREE SPEECH

 

WND EXCLUSIVE

TOP MUSLIM CALLS FOR U.N. TO END FREE SPEECH

Claims violence over film proof constitutional protection ‘benefits no one’

Published: 9 hours ago

by DREW ZAHN Email | Archive

Drew Zahn is a former pastor who cut his editing teeth as a member of the award-winning staff of Leadership, Christianity Today’s professional journal for church leaders. He is the editor of seven books, including Movie-Based Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching, which sparked his ongoing love affair with film and his weekly WND column, “Popcorn and a (world)view.”

 

One of the world’s most influential Muslims is now calling on the United Nations – in light of the YouTube movie blamed for violent protests across the Mideast – to impose international restrictions on free speech, criminalizing any statement that impugns Islam.

Sheikh Abdullah Bin Bayyah, a professor at King Abdul Aziz University in Saudi Arabia, is a member of several international organizations, including the Centre for Studying the Aims of Sharia in the U.K., as well as serving as the vice chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars.

The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre ranked bin Bayyah No. 31 on its list of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world for 2011.

In a public declaration issued to several Islamic bodies, including the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, one of the largest Muslim mosques in the D.C. metro area and the U.S., bin Bayyah called upon “people of reason and understanding” to put a legal stop to statements that would offend Muslims and thereby threaten world peace.

“We ask everyone to ponder the ramifications of provoking the feelings of over one billion people by a small party of people who desires not to seek peace nor fraternity between members of humanity,” bin Bayyah wrote. “This poses a threat to world peace with no tangible benefit realized. Is it not necessary in today’s world for the United Nations to issue a resolution criminalizing the impingement of religious symbols? We request all religious and political authorities, as well as people of reason to join us in putting a stop to this futility that benefits no one.”

Bin Bayyah’s statement was titled a “Declaration Regarding the Offensive Video to Muslims,” a clear reference to the YouTube film, “Innocence of Muslims,” which has been widely – if controversially – blamed for inciting riots against embassies in the Middle East and the resulting death of four U.S. diplomats.

The Obama administration had similarly asked Google, the parent company of YouTube, to review whether “Innocence of Muslims” violates its terms-of-use policies.

Thus far, Google has refused to remove the video from YouTube, though it blocked access in some sensitive countries.

Pundits from a wide spectrum of news outlets have agreed the video is protected by free speech rights in the U.S.

Bin Bayyah’s statement continued, condemning the embassy attacks in the Middle East: “We implore you not to inflict violence upon anyone, whether foreign delegations or otherwise. You should not destroy property or flout the values and cherished principles that you defend, as attacking innocents, killing foreign diplomats and ambassadors contravenes religious and moral principles before it contravenes political ones.”

Nonetheless, bin Bayyah reiterated the U.S. should make videos like “Innocence of Muslims” illegal, even while he claimed to back “free speech.”

“To our Western neighbors … we are extremely concerned with a small active minority in your countries that seeks to perpetuate a state of conflict and war,” bin Bayyah wrote. “We estimate that such objectives do not serve the general interest. Therefore, it is our hope that you reconsider and criminalize the denigration of religious symbols, as such provocations do not serve the principles of free speech, principles that you and us both seek to uphold.”

In a WND commentary, Diana West discussed other leading Muslims’ attempts to criminalize criticism of Islam.

“Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt (who denies that al-Qaida attacked the U.S. on 9/11, by the way), directed the Egyptian Embassy in Washington to ‘take legal action’ against the movie’s producers,” West writes. “Morsi doesn’t seem to understand First Amendment protections.”

West continued, “Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil asked for similar action ‘within the framework of international charters that criminalize acts that stir strife on the basis of race, color or religion.’ This is a direct appeal to hold Americans accountable to the U.N. blasphemy resolution Hillary Clinton, along with the Islamic bloc, has championed, despite its repressive controls on free speech.”

West was referring a “defamation against religion” resolution the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has been pushing at the U.N. every year since 1999. Last year, Clinton worked with the OIC to pass a revised version, Resolution 16/18, which included both the usual condemnation of defaming speech and a paragraph affirming “the positive role that the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression” plays in “strengthening democracy.”

Critics of the defamation resolutions fear they could be used to outlaw valid and critical scrutiny of Islamic teachings, as some OIC states do through controversial blasphemy laws at home.

The Clinton compromise version, though still roundly criticized, enjoyed more popularity at the U.N. itself and was adopted by consensus.

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The abandonment

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By Charles Krauthammer, Published: September 13

There are two positions one can take regarding the Iranian nuclear program: (a) it doesn’t matter, we can deter them; or (b) it does matter, we must stop them.

In my view, the first position — that we can contain Iran as we did the Soviet Union — is totally wrong, a product of wishful thinking and misread history. But at least it’s internally coherent.

What is incoherent is President Obama’s position. He declares the Iranian program intolerable — “I do not have a policy of containment; I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon” — yet stands by as Iran rapidly approaches nuclearization.

A policy so incoherent, so knowingly and obviously contradictory, is a declaration of weakness and passivity. And this, as Anthony Cordesman, James Phillips and others have argued, can increase the chance of war. It creates, writes Cordesman, “the same conditions that helped trigger World War II — years of negotiations and threats, where the threats failed to be taken seriously until war became all too real.”

This has precipitated the current U.S.-Israeli crisis, sharpened by the president’s rebuff of the Israeli prime minister’s request for a meeting during his upcoming U.S. visit. Ominous new developments; no Obama response. Alarm bells going off everywhere; Obama plays deaf.

The old arguments, old excuses, old pretensions have become ridiculous:

(1) Sanctions. The director of national intelligence testified to Congress at the beginning of the year that they had zero effect in slowing the nuclear program. Now the International Atomic Energy Agency reports (Aug. 30) that the Iranian nuclear program, far from slowing, is actually accelerating. Iran has doubled the number of high-speed centrifuges at Fordow, the facility outside Qom built into a mountain to make it impregnable to air attack.

This week, the agency reported Iranian advances in calculating the explosive power of an atomic warhead. It noted once again Iran’s refusal to allow inspection of its weapons testing facility at Parchin and cited satellite evidence of Iranian attempts to clean up and hide what’s gone on there.

The administration’s ritual response is that it has imposed the toughest sanctions ever. So what? They’re a means, not an end. And they’ve had no effect on the nuclear program.

(2) Negotiations. The latest, supposedly last-ditch round of talks in Istanbul, Baghdad, then Moscow has completely collapsed. The West even conceded to Iran the right to enrich — shattering a decade-long consensus and six Security Council resolutions demanding its cessation.

Iran’s response? Contemptuous rejection.

Why not? The mullahs have strung Obama along for more than three years and still see no credible threat emanating from the one country that could disarm them.

(3) Diplomatic isolation. The administration boasts that Iran is becoming increasingly isolated. Really? Just two weeks ago, 120 nations showed up in Tehran for a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement — against U.S. entreaties not to attend. Even the U.N. secretary-general attended — after the administration implored him not to.

Which shows you what American entreaties are worth today. And the farcical nature of Iran’s alleged isolation.

The Obama policy is in shambles. Which is why Cordesman argues that the only way to prevent a nuclear Iran without war is to establish a credible military threat to make Iran recalculate and reconsider. That means U.S. red lines: deadlines beyond which Washington will not allow itself to be strung, as well as benchmark actions that would trigger a response, such as the further hardening of Iran’s nuclear facilities to the point of invulnerability and, therefore, irreversibility.

Which made all the more shocking Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s dismissal last Sunday of the very notion of any U.S. red lines. No deadlines. No bright-line action beyond which Iran must not go. The sleeping giant continues to slumber. And to wait — as the administration likes to put it, “for Iran to live up to its international obligations.”

This is beyond feckless. The Obama policy is a double game: a rhetorical commitment to stopping Iran, yet real-life actions that everyone understands will allow Iran to go nuclear.

Yet at the same time that it does nothing, the administration warns Israel sternly, repeatedly, publicly, even threateningly not to strike the Iranian nuclear program. With zero prospect of his policy succeeding, Obama insists on Israeli inaction, even as Iran races to close the window of opportunity for any successful attack.

Not since its birth six decades ago has Israel been so cast adrift by its closest ally.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

© The Washington Post Company

1.5 Billion Bin Ladens

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2012

1.5 Billion Bin Ladens

by Alan Caruba

Amidst the graffiti on the wall outside the U.S. embassy in Cairo, one of the rioters scrawled “1.5 Billion Bin Ladens.” Last time I heard, the last thing bin Laden saw was a member of Seal Team Six just before he took a bullet to the head. That is the way a nation that has been attacked responds to the murder of nearly three thousand of its citizens.

To suggest, as the White House keeps saying, that rioting in more than twenty-five mostly Muslim nations is the result of some amateur film that no one has seen reveals an administration that thinks Americans are stupid and unaware that President Obama’s foreign policy in the Middle East is responsible for the crisis that has killed our ambassador to Libya and others. A compliant mainstream news media continues to report this fiction.

At the heart of events is the intention to create a Muslim caliphate stretching across the Middle East, Northern Africa, and into Southeast Asia. One that will stretch into Europe and, presumably, America. The aim is to establish governments in which Sharia law will replace any remnants of democracy and freedom. It is being aided and abetted by Barack Hussein Obama.

I don’t want 1.5 billion Muslims to die. I just want them to stop attacking America, the West, and each other. The likelihood is that many, if not most, Muslims find the rioters an offense to Islam, but if they said so out loud, they are just as likely to become a dead Muslim. No other faith of the many on planet Earth requires its faithful to make war on everyone that is not a Muslim.

There is no making peace with the more radical elements of Islam for whom dying as a martyr is so appealing they believe that killing other people is worth strapping on a bomb.

Jews don’t believe this. Christians don’t believe this. Hindus don’t believe this. And Buddhists don’t believe this.

The history of Islam reveals a pattern of conquest by a cult that venerates a self-proclaimed prophet.

In 612 AD, Mohammed began to preach his new “religion.” It was a patchwork of what he knew of Judaism and Christianity with a mix of local pagan faiths. Its greatest appeal was that it endorsed the pillage of caravans and then of tribes as a means to acquire wealth. It permitted men to have several wives and reduced women to chattel. If you were a malcontent forever looking for someone to hate, you were instructed to hate—and kill—all non-believers in Allah.

In 632 AD, Mohammed died. His followers launched “holy wars” to spread Islam and, in the process, created the schism between Sunnis and Shiites concerning who was Mohammed’s rightful successor. They still disagree and, as we have seen, do not hesitate to kill one another.

By 638 AD, Muslims had conquered Jerusalem and, within a few decades, controlled an empire stretching from Libya to Afghanistan, a landmass that includes modern day Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.

In 673 AD, the first Muslim attack on Christian Constantinople was repulsed. Having established Islam throughout northern Africa, Muslims invaded Spain in 711 AD where they would remain for seven centuries until driven out. When they tried to go farther north in Europe, they were stopped at Poitiers, France in 732 AD.

Between 1095 and 1291, led by the Catholic Church, a series of crusades ensued. The latter ones were more successful, recapturing Jerusalem in 1099. Saladin would recapture it in 1187 AD. In 1453 AD, Constantinople fell to Ottoman armies and the Church lost its base in the Middle East. Rome would become its capitol.

Thereafter the greatest threat to Europe was the Ottomans, but in 1683 their army was decisively defeated near Vienna, ending any expansion. It would not be until World War I that the Ottoman Empire would be dismembered by Britain and France.

Muslims have long memories and still resent the loss of Spain despite their spread into India and parts of Asia. When Israel declared itself an independent nation in 1948 those memories were inflamed because Islam does not cede land it once controlled.

In the modern era, the West has mostly sought to control the Middle East through the proxies of various despots, but that has not always worked out as they wished. After invading Afghanistan the Soviet Union collapsed when they were driven out. They lost control over satellite nations in Eastern Europe. The U.S. is seen as losing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Militant Islam is on the rise again, driven in large measure by Iran, but also funded and encouraged by Saudi Arabia despite its reliance on American military power to protect it. The present turmoil has nothing to do with a quest for democracy and freedom.

In Egypt the overthrow of Hosni Mubarack put the Muslim Brotherhood in charge and President Obama had signaled his support when he gave his apology speech in Cairo in 2009. He then supported the overthrow of Libya’s dictator.

In all likelihood, Israel will have to mount a military mission to damage Iran’s nuclear program. If it does not, it will be destroyed. After Israel, America will be next. So let’s root for Israel even if the present administration does not.

America’s problem is the present administration of Barack Hussein Obama who was elected in 2008 despite the fact that his father was a Muslim, his step-father was a Muslim, and his outreach to Muslims has proven to be a colossal failure.

America responded to the 2001 attack on 9/11 with military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. It did not pursue these wars as we once did against Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan in the last century which ended with the demand for an unconditional surrender and a long occupation.

That’s going to be hard to achieve as President Obama continues to reduce our nuclear arsenal and massive budget cuts to our military power kick in. Those who think that America can withdraw from the Muslim turmoil and aggression behind two great oceans are wrong. We could not do that in the 1940s, we could not do that in 2001, and we cannot do it now.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

SOURCE: THIS IS HOW ISLAMISTS KNEW OF SECRET U.S. SAFEHOUSE

 

WND EXCLUSIVE

SOURCE: THIS IS HOW ISLAMISTS KNEW OF SECRET U.S. SAFEHOUSE

Official warns of large scale
al-Qaida infiltration

Published: 23 hours ago

by AARON KLEIN Email | Archive

Aaron Klein is WND’s senior staff reporter and Jerusalem bureau chief. He also hosts “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York’s WABC Radio. Follow Aaron on Twitter and Facebook.

NEW YORK – An Egyptian security official speaking to WND today said there is information about large-scale infiltration by al-Qaida and its affiliated Jihadia Salafiya groups within the Libyan security apparatus.

The claim comes amid speculation about how Islamists who targeted the U.S. mission in Libya seemed to have inside information about the movement of the American diplomats in the country as well as the location of a supposedly secret U.S. safehouse in Libya.

The attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya came in two phases. The first phase saw a mob arrive at the one-story villa that serves as the consulate, with heavily armed men later coming to the scene with armored vehicles and rocket-propelled grenades. Ambassador Chris Stevens and another American were killed in the initial attack.

Libyan security forces then evacuated the consulate staff to a supposedly secret safehouse located about a mile away. Hours later, a second assault targeted the safe house, killing two Americans and wounding a number of Libyans and Americans.

U.S. backing Islamic groups behind Libya, Egypt attacks?

The claim of al-Qaida infiltration of Libyan security forces comes after WND documented earlier this week how the U.S. supported Libyan rebels amid widespread reports that al-Qaida groups were incorporated in the rebel ranks.

The attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya is being widely blamed on al-Qaida-linked groups.

One witness to the mob scene in Libya said some of the gunmen attacking the U.S. installation had identified themselves as members of Ansar al-Shariah, which represents al-Qaida in Yemen and Libya.

The al-Qaida offshoot released a statement denying its members were behind the deadly attack, but a man identified as a leader of the Ansar brigade told Al Jazeera the group indeed took part in the Benghazi attack.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blamed the attack in Libya on a “small and savage group,” not the government or people of Libya.

In Egypt, demonstrators earlier this week tore down the American flag outside Cairo’s U.S. embassy and burned it reportedly in protest of a film that depicts the Islamic figure Muhammad in a negative way

According to reports, the crowd of around 2,000 protesters outside the U.S. embassy in Cairo consisted of a mixture of Islamists and teenage soccer fans known for fighting police. The protesters reportedly played a part in the U.S.-supported revolt that toppled Hosni Mubarak’s regime last year.

The revolt was successful largely after President Obama called for Mubarak, a longtime U.S. ally in the region, to step down.

However, questions remain about the nature of U.S. support for the revolutions in Egypt and Libya, including reports the U.S.-aided rebels that toppled Moammar Gadhafi’s regime in Libya consisted of al-Qaida and jihad groups. The U.S. provided direct assistance, including weapons and finances, to the Libyan rebels.

Similarly, the Obama administration is currently aiding the rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria amid widespread reports that al-Qaida jihadists are included in the ranks of the Free Syrian Army.

During the revolution against Gadhafi’s regime, the U.S. admitted to directly arming the rebel groups.

At the time, rebel leader Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi admitted in an interview that a significant number of the Libyan rebels were al-Qaida fighters, many of whom had fought U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He insisted his fighters “are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists,” but added that the “members of al-Qaida are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader.”

Adm. James Stavridis, NATO supreme commander for Europe, admitted Libya’s rebel force may include al-Qaida: “We have seen flickers in the intelligence of potential al-Qaida, Hezbollah.”

Former CIA officer Bruce Riedel went even further, telling the Hindustan Times: “There is no question that al-Qaida’s Libyan franchise, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, is a part of the opposition. It has always been Gadhafi’s biggest enemy and its stronghold is Benghazi. What is unclear is how much of the opposition is al-Qaida/Libyan Islamic Fighting Group – 2 percent or 80 percent.”

In Syria, meanwhile, the U.S. may be currently supporting al-Qaida and other jihadists fighting with the rebels targeting Assad’s regime.

Last month, WND quoted a senior Syrian source claiming at least 500 hardcore mujahedeen from Afghanistan, many of whom were spearheading efforts to fight the U.S. there, have been killed in clashes with Syrian forces last month.

Also last month, WND reported that Jihadiya Salafia in the Gaza Strip, a group that represents al-Qaida in the coastal territory, had declared three days of mourning for its own jihadists who died in Syria in recent weeks.

There have been widespread reports of al-Qaida among the Syrian rebels, including in reports by Reuters and the New York Times.

WND reported in May there is growing collaboration between the Syrian opposition and al-Qaida as well as evidence the opposition is sending weapons to jihadists in Iraq, according to an Egyptian security official.

The military official told WND that Egypt has reports of collaboration between the Syrian opposition and three al-Qaida arms, including one the operates in Libya:

• Jund al-Sham, which is made up of al-Qaida militants who are Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese;
• Jund al-Islam, which in recent years merged with Ansar al-Islam, an extremist group of Sunni Iraqis operating under the al-Qaida banner and operating in Yemen and Libya;
• Jund Ansar al-Allah, an al-Qaida group based in Gaza linked to Palestinian camps in Lebanon and Syria.

U.S. officials have stated the White House is providing nonlethal aid to the Syrian rebels while widespread reports have claimed the U.S. has been working with Arab countries to ensure the opposition in Syria is well armed.

Obama to avoid meeting with Netanyahu

In unusual snub, Obama to avoid meeting with Netanyahu

By Matt Spetalnick and Allyn Fisher-Ilan | Reuters – Tue, Sep 11, 2012

• Enlarge Photo

  Reuters/REUTERS – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a joint news conference with his Bulgarian counterpart Boiko Borisov (not pictured) in Jerusalem September 11, 2012. Netanyahu ramped …more 

WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – In a highly unusual rebuff to a close ally, the White House said on Tuesday that President Barack Obama would not meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a U.S. visit later this month, as tensions escalated over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program.

The apparent snub, coupled with Netanyahu’s sharpened demands for a tougher U.S. line against Iran, threatened to plunge U.S.-Israeli relations into crisis and add pressure on Obama in the final stretch of a tight presidential election campaign.

An Israeli official, who declined to be identified, said the White House had refused Netanyahu’s request to meet Obama when the Israeli leader visits the United States to attend the U.N. General Assembly, telling the Israelis, “The president’s schedule will not permit that.”

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor denied that Netanyahu’s request had been spurned, insisting instead that the two leaders were attending the General Assembly on different days and would not be in New York at the same time.

Netanyahu has had a strained relationship with Obama, but they have met on all but one of his U.S. trips since 2009. The president was on a foreign visit when the prime minister came to the United States in November 2010.

By withholding a meeting, the Democratic president could alienate some Jewish and pro-Israel voters as he seeks a second term in the November 6 election. Republican rival Mitt Romney has already accused Obama of being too tough on Israel and not hard enough on Iran.

The White House’s decision could signal U.S. displeasure with Netanyahu’s intensifying pressure for Obama to set specific red lines on Iran. Obama aides say privately they believe Netanyahu favors Romney, a fellow conservative, although the Israeli leader has been cautious to avoid being seen interfering in the election campaign.

Word that the two men would not meet came on the same day that Netanyahu said the United Stateshad forfeited its moral right to stop Israel from taking action against Iran’s nuclear program because it had refused to be firm with Tehran itself.

Netanyahu has argued that setting a clear boundary for Iran’s uranium enrichment activities and imposing stronger economic sanctions could deter Tehran from developing nuclear weapons and mitigate the need for military action.

In comments that appeared to bring the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran closer, Netanyahu took Washington to task for rebuffing his call to set a “red line” for Iran’s nuclear program, which has already prompted four rounds of U.N. sanctions.

“The world tells Israel, ‘Wait, there’s still time.’ And I say, ‘Wait for what? Wait until when?’” Netanyahu said.

“Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel,” he added, addressing a news conference with Bulgaria’s prime minister.

John McCain and Lindsey Graham, Republican senators and critics of Obama’s foreign policy, said in a joint statement: “It is puzzling that the president can’t make time to see the head of state of one of America’s closest allies in the world.”

“If these reports are true, the White House’s decision sends a troubling signal to our ally Israel about America’s commitment at this dangerous and challenging time,” they said.

‘UNPRECEDENTED ATTACK’

The website of Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz called Netanyahu’s words “an unprecedented verbal attack on the U.S. government”.

Iran makes no secret of its hostility to Israel, widely assumed to be the region’s only nuclear-armed power, but says its nuclear program is purely peaceful.

Netanyahu’s relations with Obama have been tense because of Iran and other issues, such as Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

But he has never framed his differences with Obama – who has pledged he will “always have Israel’s back” – in moral terms.

Obama has been seeking to shore up his advantage over Romney with Jewish voters – who could make a difference in election battleground states like Florida and Ohio – by recently stressing his rock-solid support for Israel’s security.

He received 78 percent of the Jewish vote in the 2008 election, but a nationwide Gallup poll in June showed him down to 64 percent backing versus Romney’s 29 percent.

While seeking to put Netanyahu in his place might not go down well with pro-Israel voters, the White House may also be trying to avoid the prospects of an embarrassing encounter at a difficult time in U.S.-Israeli relations.

When the two men met in the Oval Office in May 2011, Netanyahu lectured Obama on Jewish history and criticized his approach to Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.

Netanyahu’s office had offered a solution to the leaders’ scheduling problems by having him visit Washington before his U.N. speech on September 28, the Israeli official said. The White House did not accept the idea.

Obama, who is keeping up a busy schedule of campaign rallies across the country, is expected to take a break to address the opening session at the United Nations on September 25. A U.S. official said instead of Obama’s usual meetings with foreign leaders on the sidelines, he was not expected to have any.

There was no immediate comment from the Romney campaign, which had curtailed its public statements out of respect for the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Netanyahu’s harsh comments on Tuesday followed U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s remarks on Monday that the United States would not set a deadline in further talks with Iran, and that there was still time for diplomacy to work.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Tuesday that Washington would have little more than a year to act to stop Iran if it decided to produce a nuclear weapon.

Iran has threatened to retaliate against Israel and U.S. interests in the Gulf if it is attacked, and any such conflict could throw Obama’s re-election bid off course.

DEADLINE

Netanyahu did not mention Clinton by name, but pointedly parroted her use of the word “deadline,” saying: “If Iran knows that there is no ‘deadline’, what will it do? Exactly what it’s doing. It’s continuing, without any interference, towards obtaining a nuclear weapons capability and from there, nuclear bombs.”

“So far, we can say with certainty that diplomacy and sanctions haven’t worked. The sanctions have hurt the Iranian economy, but they haven’t stopped the Iranian nuclear program. That’s a fact. And the fact is that every day that passes, Iran gets closer and closer to nuclear bombs.”

Despite the recent tougher Israeli rhetoric, over the past week, Netanyahu, in calling for a “red line,” had appeared to be backing away from military action and preparing the ground for a possible meeting with Obama.

Opinion polls suggest a majority of Israelis do not want their military to strike Iran without U.S. support.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak seemed to criticize Netanyahu’s assault on the Jewish state’s biggest ally.

“Despite the differences and importance of maintaining Israel’s independence of action, we must remember the importance of partnership with the United States and try as much as possible not to hurt that,” a statement from his office said.

(Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Michael Roddy and Peter Cooney)