46% say Obama is pro-Palestinian, 10% of Israeli Jews think president is pro-Israel.

US President Barack Obama’s efforts to reach out to the people of Israel last week – when he hosted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for a positive meeting at the White House and gave his first interview as president to an Israeli television station – were not very successful, according to a Smith Research poll for The Jerusalem Post.

When asked whether they saw Obama’s administration as more pro-Israel, more pro- Palestinian or neutral, just 10 percent of Israeli Jews said more pro-Israel, 46% said more pro-Palestinian, 34% said neutral and 10% did not express an opinion.

The poll of 515 Jewish Israelis, representing a statistical sample of the adult Jewish population, was taken on Monday through Wednesday and had a 4.4 percentage point margin of error.

After Obama’s earlier meetings with Netanyahu were portrayed as adversarial, Obama made a point of treating the prime minister with the utmost respect last week, accompanying him to his car and constantly commending him in particular and Israelis in general during his press conference with Netanyahu on Tuesday, and his interview with Channel 2 anchor Yonit Levy two days later.

But what was widely described as a “charm offensive” did not immediately sway many Israelis in his favor, the JPost/Smith poll indicates. There was only a 1 percentage point rise in Israelis who consider the US administration headed by Obama to be more pro-Israel than pro-Palestinian since the last such poll was taken in March.

The question asked was exactly the same as in four previous polls sponsored by this newspaper since May 2009. The first poll, which was taken before the first Netanyahu-Obama meeting in the White House and Obama’s landmark speech in Cairo in June 2009, found that 31% considered this presidency more pro- Israel and 14% more pro-Palestinian.

The next poll, taken just one month later, found a huge shift, with the proportion calling the Obama administration more pro-Palestinian rising from 14% to 50% and the proportion calling it more pro-Israel falling from 31% to only 6%.

Those calling the Obama presidency more pro-Israel than pro-Palestinian fell in August 2009 to a nadir of 4% and rose to 9% in March 2010.

Since then, the latest poll shows, the share who consider this White House more pro-Palestinian fell by 2 percentage points, from 48% to 46%, and those saying it is neutral rose from 30% to 34%.

Respondents who consider themselves right-wing or haredi were more likely to call the Obama administration more pro-Palestinian.

Sixty-eight percent of haredi respondents and 63% of right-wingers gave that response, compared to 46% of the general Jewish population.

Among Likud voters, 52% called the administration more pro-Palestinian and 14% said it was more pro-Israel.

The Jewish Israelis who were mostly likely to respond that the Obama administration was more pro-Israel were those who said they intended to vote for Labor or Meretz in the next election, at 25%, compared to 10% of the general population.

When asked last week by interviewer Levy why he felt Israelis did not believe he had a special connection to their country, Obama blamed it on superficial reasons and ruled out it having anything to do with policies or his behavior.

“Some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein, and that creates suspicion,” Obama said. “Some of it may have to do with the fact that I have actively reached out to the Muslim community, and I think that sometimes, particularly in the Middle East, there’s the feeling of the friend of my enemy must be my enemy. And the truth of the matter is, is that my outreach to the Muslim community is designed precisely to reduce the antagonism and the dangers posed by a hostile Muslim world to Israel and to the West.”

When Netanyahu was asked why Israelis disliked Obama, in an interview with CBS news anchor Katie Couric last week, Netanyahu said that Israelis did not have all the facts before them like he did.

“Maybe they don’t have the opportunity to have the kind of conversations that I had,” he said. “And maybe they’re not aware also of the ongoing cooperation between Israel and the United States. In the fields of security, intelligence – the fact that the Iron Dome program to protect against missiles is something that has been bolstered by this administration and by this president. We have a common goal to achieve a secure peace. I’m looking forward to working with him to achieve it.”

When Couric followed up by asking why he did not advocate more strongly on Obama’s behalf, Netanyahu replied that he had invited the US president to Israel and that he hoped he would find an appropriate time to come. He predicted that Israelis would start liking Obama “when people get to know him.”

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni this week praised Obama for talking directly to Israelis in the interview with Levy. She blamed the antagonism between Israelis and Obama on Netanyahu, for not taking steps to advance the diplomatic process.

“What has to happen is progress on essential matters, not just a nice photo-op,” Livni told The Jerusalem Post, in her first comments on the meeting. “The US and Israel have the same interests. What Obama said [in the briefing and the interview] was honest, and I am sure the message reached Israelis, despite what the poll says.”

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy will in future be able to address the UN chamber no differently from US President Barack Obama or Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmedinejad under draft reforms agreed by member states.

EU countries at meetings in Brussels and New York have agreed to table a resolution in the UN General Assembly (UNGA) to give the union the right to speak, according to a UK ministerial letter sent out to British MPs on Wednesday (14 July) and seen by EUobserver. 

The EU currently has only observer status at the UN. Its delegates do not sit among the UN member states, but off to the side, along with entities such as the Vatican, the Red Cross and the Arab League.

The symbolic sitting arrangements are not due to change. 

But if the motion, which is to be tabled in the coming weeks, is approved by the general assembly, the EU will also be awarded other rights enjoyed by fully-fledged UN members, such as the right to make proposals and submit amendments, the right of reply, the right to raise points of order and the right to circulate documents.

There will also be additional seats put in for the EU’s foreign policy chief, High Representative Catherine Ashton and her officials.

An EU diplomat said the idea behind the changes is to boost the profile of the EU as an entity in itself at the international level.

Britain’s EU minister, David Lidington, in the UK ministerial letter said however that the move should not be interpreted as undermining Britain’s permanent seat on the UN Security Council: “The granting of such rights to the EU will not affect the UK’s position as a member of the UNGA or the UN Security Council.”

Meanwhile, foreign secretary William Hague is making sure that UK diplomats in New York send out the message the EU upgrade is “strictly limited.” The new resolution “does not imply agreement to seek additional rights in any other fora,” the UK ministerial letter says.

The new rights flow from changes established by the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force last December. “The Lisbon Treaty established new structures for the management of the EU’s external relations,” Mr Lidington explained.

The UN developments could be seen as something of a u-turn for the British Conservative party.

Back in October 2007, when the Tories were still in opposition and the Lisbon Treaty was just about to be signed off by EU countries, Mr Hague had warned that Lisbon would ultimately lead to an EU “takeover” of Britain’s permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Mr Hague said at the time: “The new treaty, like the old, could automatically let the EU foreign minister speak for Britain at the UN security Council in certain situations.

“This is clearly the thin end of the wedge for an EU takeover of our only seat. Given that our independent vote at the EU is now coming under threat, the case for letting people have their final say in the referendum [on the Lisbon Treaty] they were promised is now unanswerable.”

He made the comments after the then deputy UN general secretary Mark Malloch Brown, who later became a Labour minister, said that an EU replacement of the UK seat was inevitable, in remarks first reported by EUobserver.

“I think it will go in stages,” he said. “We are going to see a growing spread of that and then steady formalisation of it institution by institution, probably starting in the UNDP or UNICEF [two UN branches dealing with aid] first.”

“It is not going to happen with a flash and a bang,” he continued, adding that he hoped “it will happen as quickly as possible.”

Speaking to this website, a UK diplomat said the latest move represents no threat to the UK’s security council seat: “This is a completely separate discussion. This is about the government’s new, engaged and open approach to the EU. This is why we’re telling MPs.”

“There is no change in seating arrangements. The EU will not now be sitting amongst the UN member states … between Ethiopia and Fiji,” the diplomat added.

Shades of Star Trek’s Romulan cloaking device: The Israel Air Force may soon be flying under the radar – even when it isn’t – thanks to a new “stealth paint” developed with nanotechnology.

The science of the material is, in fact, not so far a stretch from the famed classic American sci-fi television series, in which the cloaking device caused spaceships to become invisible to parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.
The Israel-based Nanoflight firm has just completed trials on a special paint that can make an aerial vehicle nearly undetectable by radar. It won’t make it impossible, but it will certainly make the task infinitely more difficult, due to the qualities of the paint, which makes it appear as if the aircraft is some other object in the surrounding environment.

The cost-benefit ratio is also a major plus: a U.S.-made Stealth plane costs in the vicinity of $5 billion. “Stealth paint” costs considerably less.

A successful test run of the technology was completed this week, with a thin layer of the paint spread over dummy missiles. Radar waves aimed at the “missiles” had a tough time finding them, and could not identify them as missiles.

This is how it works. Any object coated with the paint is enveloped by the nanotechnology used to produce the material. When electromagnetic waves are sent out by radar to sense whatever is entering its defense field, those radio waves are absorbed by the painted object, and then subsequently released back into the atmosphere as heat energy.

The changed electromagnetic waves return to their source, which would normally register the distance of the object, as with sonar in a medical ultrasound test, but there aren’t enough of them to make an identification on a radar screen.

“Stealth paint” can also be used for other purposes according to the firm, which is also working on an application that will work with infrared, so that soldiers won’t be visible on night-vision goggles.

The technology is useful for civilian applications as well. The material might in future be used to prevent pollution through its absorption and transformation properties, said Nanoflight CEO Ricardo Burstein. Guardrails along the main streets of Ramat Gan are being painted with the material in an experiment to see whether it will help eliminate air pollution generated by passing vehicles, he said. Another application of the technology might be to prevent the radiation emitted by electrical transformers from reaching homes and schools.

President Obama is betraying the Jews. He is a cultural Muslim whose sympathies lie with the Islamic world in its life-death struggle against Israel. Unless American Jews  wake up and speak out against Mr. Obama’s pro-Arab, anti-Israel policies, the Jewish state faces a possible nuclear war — and even annihilation.

Mr. Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week. The goal: to repair the public rift in relations between Washington and Jerusalem.

“The bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable,” Mr. Obama said. “It encompasses our national security interests, our strategic interests, but most importantly the bond of two democracies who share a common set of values and whose people have grown closer and closer as time goes on.”

Don’t believe him. In front of reporters, Mr. Obama may praise the Jewish state. But behind the scenes, he is selling the Jews down the river.

According to a recent story in WorldTribune.com, a prominent intelligence news website, administration officials have assured the Saudi royal family that Mr. Obama is determined to pressure Mr. Netanyahu into accepting an independent Palestinian state encompassing the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital. Mr. Obama — like many in the Arab world — believes that the key to Middle East peace is resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

It isn’t. Rather, an independent Palestine will be an Islamic stake aimed at the heart of the Jewish state. Israel’s withdrawal to pre-1967 borders will leave Jerusalem vulnerable to an all-out military assault. The Arabs will have the strategic means to implement their overriding ambition since the creation of Israel in 1948: wiping out the Jews.

The democratically elected Hamas regime that runs the Gaza Strip openly calls for the destruction of the Jews. The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank led by President Mahmoud Abbas systemically indoctrinates Palestinians about the “evil Zionist state.” Palestinian television, schools and state-controlled media all preach that Israel is inherently “illegitimate” and must be “eliminated.” The overwhelming majority of the Palestinians (and Arabs) don’t want peace. They want conquest.

The notion of two states, in which Jews and Palestinians are living side by side in mutual coexistence, is an illusion. If the Palestinians abandoned their guns, there would be peace. If the Israelis abandoned their guns, there would be genocide.

The root cause of the violence in the Middle East has nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is a distraction, a convenient excuse consistently used by Arab tyrants to cover up the real disease afflicting the region: radical Islam. From its inception, Islamic civilization has been at war with its neighbors. The Muslim faith has spread throughout centuries by the sword and violent jihad. It is why Christians and Jews were slaughtered and expelled from Arab lands during the Middle Ages. It is why the Ottoman Turks invaded and conquered Spain, Portugal, the Balkans and parts of France and Italy, even reaching the gates of Vienna.

It is why the Saudis today continue to spend billions of dollars funding extremist madrassa all over the world. It is why Islamofascists, such as the Taliban and Al Qaida, seek a global caliphate based on Shariah law. It is why Iran’s revolutionary Shiite mullahs are marching toward a nuclear bomb.

From its inception, political Islam has been at war with the West — first, with Christendom, and now with its modern secular variant, liberal democracy. There is no escape for either Israel or America. Islamists despise the Jewish state because it is the West’s strategic bulwark in the Middle East — a democratic outpost in a region marked by economic backwardness, authoritarianism and religious fanaticism. The United States is the bastion of the free world, the last great power of the West. Hence, for Islamic radicals, these two nations must be smashed. It is a fight to the finish — and only one side can emerge victorious.

For all of his flaws (and there were many), former President George W. Bush understood this seminal reality. This is why he fought the war against Islamic terrorism. It is also why he was the most pro-Israel leader in U.S. history. He understood one simple truth: Israel’s struggle is the West’s struggle.

Mr. Obama is the anti-Bush. He is virulently anti-Israel, championing appeasement toward radical Islam. The reason lies in Mr. Obama’s background and worldview — one that makes him uniquely unqualified to prosecute the war on terror.

During his youth, Mr. Obama was raised and educated as a Muslim. His father and stepfather were Muslims. When Mr. Obama attended a Catholic school in Indonesia, he was registered as an Indonesian citizen and “a Muslim.” In public school, he was also identified as practicing Islam. Under the name “Barry Soetoro,” he was compelled to take daily Islamic religious instruction, recite prayers, study the Koran and learn Arabic. His former classmates and teachers remember him as a devout Muslim.

For example, Rony Amir, a childhood pal of young Barry, described Mr. Obama as “previously quite religious in Islam.”

“We previously often asked him to the prayer room close to the house,” Mr. Amir said. “If he was wearing a sarong [waist garment worn for religious or casual occasions] he looked funny.”

Nor is Mr. Obama’s sympathy for Islamic culture limited to his youth. In an interview with the New York Times, Mr. Obama described the Muslim call to prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”

The Times also noted that Mr. Obama recited, “with a first-class [Arabic] accent,” the opening lines of the Muslim call to prayer.

Here are the first few lines:

      Allah is Supreme!
      Allah is Supreme!
      Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
      I witness that there is no god but Allah
      I witness that there is no god but Allah
      I witness that Muhammad is his prophet …

Mr. Obama says he is a practicing Christian. Yet, there can be no denying that his Muslim heritage and Islamic background infuses his thought and actions.

Culturally, he is America’s first Muslim president. He refuses to admit there is a war against Islamist terrorism. His counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, even denies that jihad is a motive for Muslim extremists. He publicly excoriates Israel for building Jewish apartments in East Jerusalem, but calls for “engagement” and “dialogue” with Iran. He seeks a rapprochement with Syria, downplaying its ties to Tehran and support for Hezbollah. He is prematurely pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq. He has imposed crippling rules of engagement that make victory all but impossible in Afghanistan — for fear of killing civilians and “angering” the Muslim street. He demands Gitmo be closed. He calls for terrorists, like Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, to be tried in civilian court. He has ordered that NASA’s “foremost” mission be “outreach” to the Islamic world — not space exploration. And he adamantly embraces Palestinian statehood, even at the mortal risk posed to Israel.

In short, Mr. Obama seeks to coddle the Islamic world. The result is that Iran is on the verge of acquiring the bomb. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
— like all fanatics — is a serious man. He vows to slay the Jews of Israel once and for all. Mr. Obama is not some grand peacemaker. Rather, he is a naive, foolish leftist who — blinded by his ideological and cultural blinkers — is playing right into the blood-soaked hands of America’s enemies.

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