Danny Danon: The U.S. Should Be Ashamed

The U.S. should be “ashamed” of issuing an official statement on the current violence in Gaza that called on “both sides” – Israel and Hamas – to restore calm, declared a Knesset member from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party today.

“I think that every American should be ashamed of such a statement coming from the administration,” said Danny Danon.

Danon, the deputy speaker of Israel’s parliament known for his hawkish views, continued: “Do you know that Hamas was the only organization worldwide that condemned the killing of Osama bin Laden? So how could the administration compare what is happening now and say both sides. It is unacceptable.”

Danon made these comments during an interview on Aaron Klein Investigative Radio on WABC Radio.

The Knesset member was reacting to an official statement on the Gaza violence from State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland that said the U.S. was “deeply concerned” by the renewed violence in southern Israel. “We condemn in the strongest terms the rocket fire from Gaza by terrorists into southern Israel… we call on both sides to make every effort to restore calm,” added the statement.

Talks Of Intervening In Syria Grows More Serious

The Obama administration and its allies and international partners have begun “serious discussions” about possible military action in Syria, the Washington Post reported this week.

In February, this column was first to report that NATO countries are strongly considering the possibility of an international deployment to Syria if the Syrian opposition does not make major advances.

The Post reported that possibilities for international intervention include directly arming opposition forces, sending troops to guard a humanitarian corridor or “safe zone” for the rebels, or an air assault on Syrian air defenses, according to officials from the United States and other nations opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Sources tell this column that the U.S. and other countries have been arming the rebels for weeks. Egyptian security officials have outlined what they said was large scale international backing for the Syrian rebels – including arms and training from the U.S., Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Several knowledgeable Egyptian and Arab security officials claimed the U.S., Turkey and Jordan were running a training base for the rebels in the Jordanian town of Safawi.

Controversial Professor May Have Visited White House In 2010

Did Derrick A. Bell, the late Harvard Law professor now under a veritable microscope for his early association with President Obama, visit the White House two years ago?

The name “Derrick A. Bell” appears twice in the White House visitors logs for January 29 and 31, 2010. The logs show Bell visited the White House residence. Professor Bell died in October 2011.

Obama’s published schedule shows the president was inside the White House during, at least, Bell’s visit on January 29 at 9 a.m. Bell made the first appointment the day of Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address.

The White House did not return a request seeking comment.

BuzzFeed.com released a short clip from 1991 of Obama, then a Harvard law student, praising the professor at a protest and asking students to “open your hearts and open your minds to the words of Professor Derrick Bell.” Breitbart.com editors showed more of the video on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show last night, including footage of Obama hugging Bell.

The event was occasioned by Bell’s demand that Harvard hire a black woman – specifically visiting professor Regina Austin, who, like Bell, was an adherent of Critical Race Theory.

Bell is largely credited as the originator of the theory, which analyzes the way “white supremacy” and “racial power” are reproduced over time and seeks “racial emancipation” and “anti-subordination” from whites.

This column has learned that Bell previously endorsed a controversial magazine, Race Traitor, whose official motto is “treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.” Bell also signed a credo calling for the abolishment of “the white race as a social category – in other words, eradicate white supremacy entirely.”

Bell actually has a long history of making racially divisive remarks. He was, for example, among the early critics of the June 1991 nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, stating, “To place a person who looks black and who, in conservative terms, thinks white, is an insult.”

Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief and senior reporter for WorldNetDaily.com. He is also host of an investigative radio program on New York’s 770-WABC Radio, the largest talk radio station in the U.S., every Sunday between 7-9 p.m. His website is KleinOnline.com.

The Knesset Committee on Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs announced that it would appeal to European parliaments to drop efforts to outlaw kosher slaughter of animals, or “shechita”.

In a statement released after the meeting, the Committee noted that “Italy’s Chief Rabbi, Prof. Riccardo Di Segni stressed that the requirement [in the proposed legislation] is to stun the animals prior to slaughtering, and while most Muslims are actually prepared to do this, Jewish religious law forbids this, so that the new laws specifically target Jews.” Committee Chair Danny Danon said that “an element of anti-Semitism” permeates such legislation.

The Committee statement added that Shechita has been banned in Switzerland since 1893 and that Norway passed a similar law 4 years ago.

“The fight for democracy is taking place today within the Likud: between Ruby Rivlin, Michael Eitan and Dan Meridor on one side, and Yariv Levin, Zeev Elkin, Danny Danon and all those who are – conditionally, of course – on [Moshe] Feiglin’s endorsed list on the other.”

In a long and reasoned article published recently on Israel’s most popular news site, Ynet, Labor Party activist Dr. Itai Asher explains how the Likud has become the arena for the battle over the future of the State of Israel: a battle between “democracy” and the “Feiglinites.”

In principle, Dr. Asher is right. Manhigut Yehudit helped shape the Likud’s Knesset roster, aligning it more with the national camp’s ideology. But a quick look at the list of names that Dr. Asher cites shows that the “battle for democracy” (in his words) is not being fought between different endorsed groups alone. Its roots go much deeper.

Ruby Rivlin, for example, was on the Manhigut Yehudit-endorsed candidates list. If so, how is it that Rivlin opposes the new law proposals requiring a Knesset hearing for candidates for the Supreme Court and imposing stiff fines for libel? On the other hand, Elkin, who got into the Knesset as a Netanyahu candidate, is working hard to get the proposals passed. How can it be that Elkin has positioned himself in the “dark Feiglinite dictatorship” – in the words of opposition leader Tzipi Livni?

Rivlin, Eitan and Meridor are all part of the veteran generation of the Likud. Their actions are dictated by the old Likud mentality. Levin, Elkin and Danon belong to the new generation in the Likud. They represent the mentality of the future that is developing within the national ruling party.

More than Manhigut Yehudit influences the makeup of the party roster. It influences the vision of the Likud and the perspective of its members. My repeated candidacies for leadership of the Likud planted the option for different values in the nationalist ruling party. No more existence for its own sake that sees the “peace process” as its ultimate dream, preventing the Likud from following any path other than Oslo. Instead, Manhigut Yehudit has infused the Likud with a sense of destiny for which it is sometimes worthwhile to sacrifice one’s individual existence. It is a destiny that frees the national camp from its psychological dependence on the Left.

My candidacy for leadership of the Likud opened the gates for a steady stream of faith-based voters, who voted for the MKs who are working hard today to liberate the Jewish majority from the grip of the Left’s two main ruling tools: the courts and the media. It is no coincidence that the latest legislative proposals focus on these two tenets. The courts and the media are the long arms of the Left. They sustain Israel’s dubious “democracy.”

The generation of Rivlin, Eitan and Meridor did not come of age with Manhigut Yehudit in the Likud. They have made peace with the leftist hegemony. We have all gotten used to the fact that when you vote Left you get Left, and when you vote Right, you get double Left. The veteran politicians cannot internalize the thought that the Likud can develop its own sense of legitimacy, adopt a path that deviates from what the Left dictates, and simply insist on ruling. Ironically, they see the new internal liberty as straying from Jabotinsky’s principles.

Levin, Elkin and Danon, on the other hand, draw the courage to face off against the Supreme Court and the media from the new sense of destiny and from the masses of faith-based voters who have joined the Likud. True, the Likud and the new MKs have not yet connected to the faith-based vision. That will still take some time. But the new sense of destiny has already created a new reality. It exudes self-confidence, creates independence, and straightens the back of the national camp. And it is bearing fruit.

From our vantage point within this process, it is sometimes hard to appreciate what has happened. It is not always easy to identify the process that begins with the faith-based vision and candidacy for leadership of the Likud to mass faith-based membership in the Likud and then on to the recent legislative proposals.

To understand what is taking place here, we must look to the Left. They are not talking about a Lieberman or Marzelite dictatorship, but rather a “Feiglinite tyranny.” They easily discovered the precise source of the process that threatens to liberate the Jewish majority from their generations-long grip. They understand where it came from and where it is going much better than all the rightists. They have identified the source – and that is where they are taking aim.

Israel’s decision to close a bridge to the Temple Mount deemed unfit for use is a “declaration of religious war on the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem,” according to a statement by a Hamas spokesman.

Fawzi Barhum told the AFP that the closure of the Mughrabi (also known as the Rambam or the Moroccans’ gate) “is a serious step that shows the Zionist scheme of aggression against the Al-Aqsa mosque.  The statement follows remarks by head Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erkat last week, who called the safety measure a sign of Israel’s “determination to Judaize Jerusalem and to take over the city’s Muslim holy places.”  The Muslim Waqf has also demanded that cease any work to renovate the bridge to the gate.

The Jerusalem municipality ordered that the wooden bridge, which leads from the Western Wall plaza up to the Temple Mount, be closed after Jerusalem’s chief engineer deemed it structurally unsound and a fire hazard.  Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ordered the demolition and replacement of the structure be postponed, when regional tempers flared in reaction to the idea and it appeared the issue would influence Egyptian elections.

Despite the necessity of the closure, it complicates Jewish and Christian ascension to the Temple Mount, being the only gate which currently enables non-Muslims to gain access to the site.  At present, 10 of the Temple Mount’s 15 gates are in use.  Jews who arrived at the Mughrabi gate on Sunday in order to ascend to the Mount were denied any access to the site because of the gate’s closure.

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin told German ambassador to Israel Andreas Michaelis on Monday that Israel would re-open the bridge.  “Four days after the Six-Day War we decided to allow Muslims to remain in control over the Temple Mount, even though this drew the ire of many Jews and was viewed as an abandonment of the holy site to Muslims,” Rivlin said. “The Mugrabi Bridge was built with unanimous consent.”

According to Army Radio, Michaelis replied that Germany believes Israel is closing the bridge for improvements, and suggested an “Arab tendency to create conspiracy theories around the bridge.”

The original earthen ramp to the Mughrabi Gate collapsed during a snowstorm in 2004.  A temporary bridge was built, but when Israel began repairing the ramp in 2007, Muslim calls for an intifada and rioting in Jerusalem and Jordan caused the project to be postponed.  During that closure, Jews were redirected to the Shalshelet (Chain) Gate on the western side of the Temple Mount.

Knesset members Danny Danon (Likud) and Uri Ariel (National Union) have both expressed strong disapproval for the notion of denying Jewish access to the Temple Mount because of the bridge closure.

“There is no reason that the state of Israel, whose capital is Jerusalem, will close off the Temple Mount, which is the bastion of Judaism in Israel and the entire world, and is one of the central pillars of the state of Israel,” MK Danon said.