By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN UPDATE ****
As I’ve noted here previously, May 14th will mark Israel’s 60th Birthday. And all over America, unelected, unrepresentative Jewish community “leaders”–like the ones here in Detroit–are embarrassed by Israel’s history and have pledged to ignore it.
And it looks like a big, formerly pro-Israel celeb is taking their lead. Not that I’m surprised. In the the ’70s, for Israel’s 30th birthday, I remember my parents went to a televised simulcast celebration at a local movie theater. This woman was front and center in that celebration. But since then, this normally loudmouthed woman has remained extremely silent on anti-Semitism and terrorist attacks against Israel.
Now, she’s taken a path close to the Richard Dreyfuss route and snubbed Israel, big-time. Perhaps, no-one should be insulted, since this frequent Clinton White House Lincoln Bedroom guest bagged going on the road with the losing Hillary campaign, too:

BS, Queen of Nostrils, Snubs Israel

Israel says Barbra Streisand has pulled out of a celebration of the country’s 60th anniversary next month.
Streisand was one of the big-name guests slated to appear at a Jerusalem convention hosted by Israeli President Shimon Peres beginning May 13.
The American diva was supposed to perform a rendition of the Hebrew prayer Avinu Malkeinu, or “Our Father Our King.”
But Peres’ office said Tuesday that Streisand has now announced she will not be coming. It says she gave no reason for the sudden cancellation.

She has a prob going to Israel to celebrate a major anniversary, but no prob performing in anti-Semitic, pan-Islamist France, last summer.
So, is “the nose” taking a stand against Israel? Sounds like it, to me. But even if she isn’t, as I noted above the problem is that she hasn’t made a single statement condemning anti-Semitic terrorist attacks over the last 9 years, and neither have many of her fellow co-religionist Hollywood colleagues.
Plop that into the same bloated compartment that holds the rest of their left-wing, anti-American politics.
Misty, water-colored memories of the way we were.
**** UPDATE: A friend reminds me that, at the start of her career, Streisand used her then-support for Israel (then, it was more fashionable), as a way to appeal to Jewish fans and succeed in showbiz. Now,it’s apparently no longer of use to her.

By Debbie Schlussel
You’ve heard of Tokyo Rose. You’ve seen Hanoi Jane. You’ve joked about Baghdad Bob.
Now meet Qaeda Morgan.
Osama Bin Laden has found in Morgan Spurlock the embodiment of all the previous enemy propagandists. Except this one has a major film production deal.
The fake-umentary maker who lied about McDonald’s in “Supersize Me,” lies about Islam, America, Israel, and Jews in “Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?” in theaters, this past weekend.

In 2005, Spurlock made a pro-Muslim episode of his F/X series, “30 Days” for which he won predictable awards and accolades from the pan-terrorist Muslim Public Affairs Council and CAIR. I was asked by Spurlock’s people to be in it, but I refused and wrote about it in the Wall Street Journal. Carefully orchestrated, Spurlock already decided his favorable conclusion about American Muslims, before he even began filming. He’s making the same case for extremist Muslims worldwide in this deceptive movie and working with the same crew of propagandist filmmakers.
In this silver screen version of slant, Spurlock presents Osama Bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda terrorists as animated baseball players on cards and in music videos, and terrorism as some sort of video game. And it is, indeed, all a game to him. His fellow left-winger, vegan chef girlfriend is pregnant with his kid, and he’s worried about his kid being born into an “unsafe world.” Therefore, feels the need to track down Bin Laden. Whatever. For the first ten minutes of the movie it’s all “me, me, me.” We watch Spurlock go through myriad stupid counterterrorism training and exercises while donning a wife-beater tank top.
And it’s all downhill from there.
In this so-called documentary, the most hostile people are not Muslims, but Israeli Orthodox Jews. The most menacing terrorist threat in Israel is . . . a bikini. Almost all Muslims love America and Americans. They only dislike our foreign policy. They are just like us with the same hopes and dreams for their children, and they almost universally deplore Bin Laden. Terrorists and terrorism are created not by Islam or Bin Laden, but by America propping up pro-American dictators, instead of letting, say, the Muslim Brotherhood take over Egypt democratically to become the latest Al-Qaeda state. Christians are not persecuted in the least in any Islamic country (except Saudi Arabia).
Oh, and America must force Israel to acquiesce to the Palestinians and give them a state (which they de facto already have) to “take away an argument” from Al-Qaeda. Plus, HAMAS doesn’t really have anything against Jews, per se, just Israel. And terrorism–as we were also told by everyone else after 9/11–that’s not Islam.
Uh-huh.
These and other fantasies and Brothers Grimm material make up the crux of Morgan Spurlock’s foray into high quality Bin Laden cinema. And although Spurlock’s deliberate selectivity and prompting of Muslims to say what they think will please Americans on film, a minor detail he forgot to edit out was very telling and subtly betrayed his message to the few who know better.
In denouncing the fence that Israel has been forced to erect to try to keep Islamic terrorists out, Spurlock shows carefully edited shots of graffiti on the fence that make the Palestinians look sympathetic. The irony of part of the graffiti he showed was lost on him. It was a picture of a young, beautiful Muslim woman in a kheffiyeh with the quote underneath: “I Am Not a Terrorist.”
Problem is, that picture, near the Ramallah checkpoint, is a photo of Leila Khaled, a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist group. The famous picture of her doesn’t include the AK-47 she actually held in the real-life portrait. Khaled, carrying grenades, hijacked TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and tried unsuccessfully to hijack El-Al Flight 219 in 1970 (also with grenades). Even though she failed to hijack the El-Al flight, her hijacking partner shot El-Al flight crew member Shlomo Vider at least five times, seriously wounding him.
As I’ve noted on this site, Khaled planned the hijacking operation in 1970, which included the successful hijacking of three other planes, and she uttered the code “go” phrase, “Labnah Sandwich,” which set off the attack. Details of the hijacking operation are well laid out in the book, “Terror in Black September,” by David Raab, which I am currently reading and which will be reviewed soon on this site. Raab was a hostage on one of the flights that was successfully hijacked by Khaled’s gant.
One of the reasons Khaled was so attractive was that she had massive plastic surgery to conceal her identity in order to carry out more Palestinian terrorist attacks. Her face has graced pro-Hezbollah rallies in Dearbornistan, and she has the dubious distinction of being the first known female Islamic terrorist.
Now, she’s “Not a Terrorist”?
That’s symbolic of the lies and fraud throughout this movie. Everywhere Spurlock goes–whether it’s Egypt or Jordan or Gaza or the Palestinian Authority or Afghanistan or Morocco or Pakistan, everyone is nice and friendly, hates Bin Laden, and loves Americans . . . again, just not our foreign policy. We are shown a HAMAS city councilman from Gaza, who apparently never read the HAMAS Charter calling for the elimination of all Jews. He claims that he and the rest of HAMAS aren’t against Jews. They just don’t like Israel. Riiiight.
The only bad places in this movie are Saudi Arabia . . . and Israel. The most hostile people Spurlock encounters in the entire Middle East are ultra-Orthodox Jews in the religious Meah Shearim section of Israel. Unlike the friendly hijab-encrusted Palestinian Muslim women and HAMASniks and even extremist Saudi Arabians (the only Muslims Spurlock portrays accurately), these men won’t talk to Spurlock. And he shows endless footage of them refusing his inquiries. Smart men. But, of course, as we know, there are plenty of Israelis who would talk to him. They just didn’t make it on film because that wouldn’t serve Spurlock’s propaganda purposes (but for an anti-Israel far left Israeli journalist, Yair Lapid, whom he briefly interviews). One of the Orthodox men shouts

Get out of here, you filth.

My sentiments on Spurlock, exactly. Great minds think alike.
Oh, and that’s after he shows a “frightening” bomb scare in Israel. After showing us the alleged damage Israelis did to Gaza and denouncing the fence bordering it, Spurlock shows us scared Israelis and a robotic team out to defuse a bomb. The “bomb” turns out to be a bikini in a plastic box. Spurlock shows lots of Israelis laughing at the “over-reaction” (to what is often actually a bomb, not a bikini, in Israel), and then starts talking to the robot, inserting C3PO sound effects. Haha, funny.
You get the point. Terrorist “attacks” against Israel are just bikinis and comedy. In contrast, the poor “Jew-loving” Palestinians are prisoners of these bikini-blower-uppers. And then, we are told by Spurlock that, even though giving the Palestinians a state won’t end terrorism, we should do it, anyway to “take away an argument” from Bin Laden. Hokay.
And in case you didn’t know–just as the Muslim propagandists and Bin Laden say–so does Spurlock. He wants you to know that Israel built the fence between it and the Palestinians, not to protect against terrorists. Nope. He wants you to know that it was

built to expand the Jewish presence in the region.

Hmmm . . . giving up the Sinai, Gaza, many Jewish settlements from which Jews were evicted from their homes in the West Bank. If that’s “expanding the Jewish presence,” someone got their addition and subtraction confused.
And don’t forget: Palestinians hate Bin Laden. Forget about the hundreds of them you saw dancing in the street on 9/11, including that lady passing out candy on the streets of Ramallah and the rest of them honking their horns in celebration of the extermination of 3,000 Americans. That wasn’t real. Because Morgan Spurlock, er . . . Qaeda Morgan, says so.
But these poor, peaceful Palestinians, despite their support for terrorism–which we don’t see a lick of in Spurlock’s whitewash, are “terrorized” by Israeli tanks patrolling the perimeter of Gaza. He implores us:

Imagine living like that and having that come near your house every day.

Um, imagine the tanks not being there and those people rushing through the fence from Gaza to brutally attack and murder Israelis. That’s what would happen. He shows a bombed out classroom in Sderot, but doesn’t seem to have a clue that the missiles that constantly hit the poor, working class Jewish suburb come from Gaza where those “awful” tanks are patrolling. Hello . . .?
Spurlock interviews Father Nabil Haddad of the pan-Islamist Greek Orthodox Church, who says, “I have no problem [being a Christian] in Jordan. We all worship Allah.” That should tell you all you need to know. Christians are particularly oppressed in Jordan, our “moderate” ally. Anyone who says otherwise on camera is living a fairy tale (or worried about living another day if he says the wrong thing). Ditto for Christians, who’ve been mass murdered and forced to flee their homes throughout the Islamic world. Figures that Spurlock chose not to interview the few Chaldeans left in Iraq, or the few remaining Christians in Afghanistan, Gaza, etc.–all of whom live in fear for their lives.
America is evil, Mid-East Scholar Spurlock tells us, because we propped up the Shah and didn’t give the Iranians democracy. Aren’t you glad they have democracy now? Spurlock doesn’t address the splendid post-Shah, Khomeini-esque consequences. And he interviews many Egyptians who are mad that we support Hosni Mubarak. Because a terrorist-ruled state would be so much better there, right? Spurlock forgot to mention that the Muslim Brotherhood–out of which HAMAS, Al-Qaeda, and Arafat all emerged–is the most popular political group there. Just as he declines to mention and inclines to gloss over so much else. That’s what a propagandist does.
This movie–1.5 hours of Al-Jazeera lite–is old hat. We’ve heard and debunked the myths that dominate this movie, for the last 6.5 years. Ditto for Spurlock’s claim that economics drives Muslims to become terrorists. How many times must we point out the rich families from which Mohammed Atta and his 18 colleagues, many Palestinian homicide bombers, and assorted others of the 72-virgin-obsessed club, emanate?
And how many times will our military contine to participate in helping anti-American propaganda films like this. It was bad enough when then-Marine Josh Rushing (who now works for Al-Jazeera) sympathized with the enemy in “Control Room” (the pro-Al-Jazeera documentary). But our soldiers in Afghanistan hang with Morgan Spurlock, risk their lives to take him on interviews with Muslims, and even let him waste a rocket-propelled grenade to see what it’s like to shoot one. Why are American tax dollars helping this guy make an anti-American movie?
In the end, Spurlock tells us his pre-conceived conclusion to which he carefully tailors this movie:

We want the same things for our family [as Muslims do]. We [America] create these demons, and we create these visions [of Islamic terrorists] that, you know, are so beyond reality. What kind of world do we want to live in? What kind of world do we want it to be?

I want it to be a world where propagandists like Qaeda Morgan aren’t funded by Hollywood film producers, and where America stops patronizing celluloid BS like his.
Ironically, Spurlock ends the movie with the Elvis Costello song, “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding?”
Unfortunately, anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic propaganda isn’t funny at all.
It’s an outrage.
One more thing: Spurlock doesn’t find Bin Laden. Shocker.

By Debbie Schlussel
This weekend, like last, has a lot of very awful new releases and one good one that is, sadly, restricted to arthouse theaters. But the worst of the films out this weekend is the one put out by Bin Laden’s new PR-man, Morgan Spurlock. I’ve never seen such a false movie in my life, as that of “Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?”. It is so bad that I’m saving my complete review in a different column, to be posted later. For now, I’ll only write a brief blurb of a review, in addition to complete reviews of the rest of the new movies. I did not screen Jackie Chan’s “Forbidden Kingdom.” Sorry. Ben Stein’s PR people did not return repeated calls requesting a screener of “Expelled.” Dumb move.

* “Forgetting Sarah Marshall“: This latest Jud Apatow movie is completely disgusting and totally juvenile. Starting with the very beginning of the movie, we’re exposed to so many shots of writer/lead actor Jason Segel’s penis, I thought I’d accidentally stepped into an XXX pay-per-view. Sadly, this movie–with the most graphic dialogue I’ve ever heard in an R-rated movie–is being heavily marketed to young teens, including a special promotion on NBC, last night, during “The Office.”
Kristen Bell plays a TV star on a CSI-style detective show. She’s dating a dull, nerdy, girlie-man played by Jason Segel, who does the musical score for her abysmal TV show. She soon announces that she’s dumping him (while we’re “blessed” with many in-your-face shots of his penis). He decides to sulk at a Hawaiian resort, where lo-and-behold, his newly ex-girlfriend is with her new love, a kooky British rock star. As he basks in misery, while watching them enjoy their time there, he meets and falls for the beautiful hotel concierge (Mila Kunis). Oh, and he’s writing a dracula puppet musical.
Like I said, this movie is extremely crass and graphic, and while there were elusive moments that it was funny, mostly it was just gross and groanworthy. Not sure what the point of the movie was, actually, except to give cameos and supporting roles to all of Judd Apatow’s friends from his previous hit movies. Possible other motive of the movie producers: to stretch the bounds of R-ratings and well-bankrolled, drunken frat-boy-style stupidity.
Extremely skipworthy. Rated TT for Truly Tasteless. Yet another exercise in defining deviancy–and American culture–downward. “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” is forgettable in every aspect, save it’s high level of depravity.
* “Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?“: I will post my complete, extensive review of this, later. The guy who lied about McDonald’s and easily got Hollywood lefties (redundant) to bankroll it, now get them to bankroll his celluloid lies about the Middle East, terrorism, and Israel. This anti-Semitic, stupid, completely false movie is the most fertilized thing I’ve ever watched onscreen. Again, stay tuned for my complete review column, later.

* “88 Minutes“: Even though my good friend from college–former University of Michigan and pro hockey player Brad Turner–is in this movie (as “Fireman #2”), I couldn’t stand this waste of time movie. So much for truth in advertising. This inane, absurd pointless exercise in torture porn and a paycheck for Al Pacino is far longer than 88 minutes. But even that would have been too long.
It’s been a long fall from the days when he magnificently played Michael Corleone. No such high-level skill or script here. Instead, Pacino plays a poofy-haired (like he stuck his finger in the socket) FBI psychiatrist and college professor. He helped put away a serial rapist/torturer/killer, who is set to be executed by day’s end.
Soon, though, women from Pacino’s life turn up tortured, raped, and killed just like those of the death row prisoner. And Pacino starts getting calls telling him he has 88 minutes to live. He tries to solve the murders and find the killer, as well as stay alive. Several women who work with him or are his students are suspects, as is a guy in a leather jacket.
In addition to showing the torture killing of the women and their bodies hanging from pulleys, the movie is torturous in its unbelievable and ridiculous plot and “twists”. The script is lame and silly. So many characters and you barely know anything about them . . . or care. The whole thing is hardly thrilling. Just completely dumb and disconnected.
Pacino must have really needed the paycheck.
* “The Counterfeiters (Die Falscher)”: This subtitled foreign language Academy Award winner is a great movie about the true story of Jewish concentration camp inmates during the Holocaust. They were allowed to live and treated relatively better because they were counterfeiters charged with creating good phony British Pounds and American Dollars (to flood and destroy the Allies’ economies). The great thing about this movie is the moral dilemmas these men faced. On the one hand, they wanted to sabotage the Nazis.
On the other hand, if they sabotaged the counterfeiting efforts for too long, they would be gassed and replaced by new counterfeiters. But they knew that if they succeeded, they’d help the Nazis and hurt the British and American war efforts, counter to their goal of ending the war and defeating the Nazis. Also, if they succeeded too quickly, they’d also be executed, as their lives would no longer be necessary to the Nazis. What to do? This movie tells the story of what they did, how they coped, and what happened in a Nazi death camp as some Jews tried to live while also trying to defeat the Nazis.
One of the year’s best movies (even though it was technically from 2007). If it is playing in your area (mostly at arthouse theaters), go see it. If not, try to see it when it’s on DVD. Very Well Done!

By Debbie Schlussel
To all of my friends and readers, thank you for the many e-cards and best wishes as the Jewish holiday of Passover approaches.
Passover starts Saturday Night, and therefore, I will be out of blog commission until Monday Night, though I will probably have some things for my webmaster to put up until then, in my absence from the Net.
In the meantime, to my Jewish friends and readers, I wish you a Happy Passover.
To my non-Jewish friends and readers, here’s a little primer–from a past year’s post–on the eight-day holiday in which we Jews celebrate our freedom from slavery in Egypt:

For the first two nights [beginning Saturday Night], we have a special ceremonial dinner, called a “Seder,” which means “order.” We eat several foods to symbolize the bitterness and sadness of slavery and the joy of freedom from it.

Passover Matzoh

The entire holiday is eight days. Throughout, we do not eat leavened bread and various other products containing ingredients that traditionally could be used for flour. For instance, no rice, corn, or certain beans and vegetables, nothing containing corn syrup, etc. Instead, we eat a flat, cracker-like bread called “matzoh,” which symbolizes the bread of oppression, as well as the fact that the Jews–escaping slavery and ultimately entering Israel (40 years later)–did not have time to have their bread raise, as they left for the desert with it on their backs. It is not a holiday for low-carbers.
The holiday is also nicknamed in Hebrew “Z’man Cherutaynu,” which means the “Time of Our Freedom.” It is especially auspicious that, as Islamists increase in their power and influence throughout the world–and wish to assert it on the rest of us (Jew and non-Jew alike)–we celebrate the freedom of the Jews (and Jesus’ ancestors, too) from those who preceded the Islamists in Egypt.
The Jews survived their enslavers in Egypt [who did not, themselves survive–they are not the modern-day pan-Arabist Egyptians]. And G-d-willing, we will all survive the Islamists worldwide, including on our American shores and far within them. If only we have the will. The Jews had the will. They wandered in the desert for 40 years.
Does America–do Westerners who do not want our world to become greater Islamia–have the will?
Will our descendants be able to celebrate a “Passover” of freedom from the slavery of Islam? We shall see. But right now, it doesn’t look good. There are far too many “Abdullahs” (the name means slave of Allah) coming to our shores and being born within them.

Passover Seder Plate

There is so much more to the holiday, but that is the “Debbie’s Notes” version. It is a great educational experience for both kids AND adults. For more details read about it here, here, and here.

Again, the celebratin of Passover is is especially meaningful at this time, as Islamists from Egypt and around greater Arabia want to do us harm and re-enslave not just Jews but Christians, non-believers, and anyone who is not as extreme as they are.
We must celebrate our freedom while we still have it. And work to keep it.

By Debbie Schlussel
Later today, I’ll post my reviews of this weekend’s new motion picture releases. One movie, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” is written by and stars Jason Segel. It’s absolutely disgusting (and stupid), and features very graphic/explicit dialogue straight from a bad porn movie. There are multiple gratuitous, up-close shots of Segel in full frontal nudity. I almost thought I was watching the “Deep Throat” sequel.
This morning, I heard an unduly gushing interview with Segel on the Detroit-based morning radio show, Drew & Mike. While the hosts verbally drooled over him, Segel told them the graphic details about how he had to worry about keeping his penis flaccid, because otherwise the movie would have gotten an NC-17 rating (which it well deserved).

What Will Perverted Writer Jason Segel Do
To Kermit & Miss Piggy?
While, now, guess what? This schleppy full-frontal “model,” writer of very graphic and disgusting dialogue, and graphic discusser flaccidity versus the erect is . . .
WRITING “THE MUPPET MOVIE”!
What the heck was Disney thinking? Keep your kids away. Having this pervert write the next Muppet movie is absurd.
Just because you have a muppet named “Miss Piggy,” doesn’t mean you need an actual pig writing the script. Somebody tell the Disney execs that Kermit is a frog character for kids, not a horny toad.
Oh, and by the way, there are Muppets in this awful, perverted movie, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” Forget the next Muppet movie.

By Debbie Schlussel
While we know that the mainstream media is very complicit in covering up the dangers of Islam and Islamic terrorism in America, the Tampa Tribune is a noted exception to that rule.
In covering the case of Youssef Samir Megahed and Ahmed Abdellatif Mohamed, editor Howard Altman and reporter Elaine Silvestrini have done a consistently stellar job. Today, Silvestrini breaks news of a conversation the two “just fireworks” smiling terrorists had in the back of the police car after they were detained. I have changed the word “G-d” back to “Allah,” as it was originally uttered in the conversation.
This betrays their claim that they were just innocent guys about to go on a 3:00 a.m. August barbecue, no?:

Mohamed and Megahed:
Smiling Terrorists Recorded Trying to Jibe Their Stories

After Youssef Megahed and Ahmed Mohamed were arrested in South Carolina, deputies recorded the men talking to each other in Arabic in the back of a patrol car.
Megahed’s attorneys want a judge to limit the use of the recording at the men’s upcoming trial, arguing that the recording largely is unintelligible. Consequently, they argue, transcripts of translations of the conversations are so limited that any comments that are intelligible are out of context.
Megahed and Mohamed were arrested Aug. 4 after deputies found pipe bombs in the trunk of their car, authorities said.
The defense has filed different transcripts with the court, one by an interpreter it hired and one by the FBI.
In the prosecution transcript, at one point Megahed asks Mohamed, “Did you tell them about the gasoline?”
“No,” Mohamed responds. “I didn’t know. I told them it’s not yours and that you have nothing to do with it and I was the one who made these fireworks, and, and and. . . . Correct? I mean, (unintelligible) and the will of Almighty Allah, (unintelligible) and Allah willing, there is nothing on you. I had told them that these things he brought, which is the (unintelligible) these are the stuff that he bought (unintelligible) and this filter.”
In the defense transcript, Megahed asks, “Did you tell them about the benzene (gasoline)?”
Mohamed says, “I have nothing to do with it. I do the fireworks and so . . . so . . . so . . . That is it . . . Allah willing. (Inaudible) . . . and I told them he bought these things (inaudible). He bought a new rifle and he uses these things to clean with.”
The prosecution has suggested the pair were getting their story straight. Megahed’s attorneys have said the conversation reflects the fact that Megahed didn’t know anything about the devices in the trunk.

Hmmm . . . why does one of them say to the other “there is nothing on you”? If they weren’t trying to hide something, this statement wouldn’t have been made. Nor would they be trying to jibe their stories.
Clearly, they were up to no good, not a barbecue. And that’s why the defendants’ attorneys want to keep this incriminating conversation out.

By Debbie Schlussel
Many readers and bloggers have sent me articles about Republican Congressman Joe Knollenberg’s bill to defund the Carter Center because of Jimmy Carter’s meeting with HAMAS leaders.
But, dear readers, you must read very closely between the lines on this one and look at the background info. Because it’s not what meets the eye.
First, the bill won’t take a single dollar–not even a penny–away from Jimmy Carter. It’s just a “sense of Congress” resolution and is non-binding. Meaningless. So, it’s no biggie–and a complete waste of time.
Moreover, Knollenberg is the one who should be defunded, as he is far more dangerous than the powerless former Peanut Farmer Prez.

Islamo-pocrisy:
Hezbollah Joe Knollenberg Wants to Get Tough on HAMAS Jimmy Carter
As long-time readers know, Knollenberg, who was my Congressman and whom I’ve known for many years, has a record of sending millions of your tax dollars to Hezbollah, and–in exchange–taking thousands of dollars from American Hezbollah frontman Nijad Fares and his pan-Hezbollah front, the American Task Force for Lebanon PAC. Fares’ father, Issam Fares, was the Hezbollah-installed Deputy Prime Minister of Lebanon, a perch from which he did Syria’s bidding.
Moreover, Knollenberg takes orders from Jim Zogby, head of the Arab American Institute, which successfully got Knollenberg to get $86 million in U.S. Aid for Southern Lebanon, all of which went to Hezbollah. Knollenberg also obtained millions of dollars in federal earmarks for the anti-Israel Arab American National Museum, which is not in his Congressional district. And he got millions in federal funding for the deceptively-named Seeds of Peace camp, founded by Yasser Arafat’s favorite biographer.
So why is Knollenberg now seeking to defund Carter for meeting with HAMAS?
Politics, my friends. Knollenberg is in the race of his life. His once-safely-Republican seat is now trending Democratic. His 2006 Dem opponent, Nancy Skinner, lost by a few hundred votes, even though she barely put on a campaign. His current Dem opponent–Gary Peters, whom I am endorsing, because he has not shown a penchant for Hezbollah–has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and the Democratic Party, nationally, has targeted Knollenberg’s seat, which he’d hoped to hand over to his State Rep. son, Marty Knollenberg (who also got campaign cash from Hezbollah’s Nijad Fares and Abdullah Bouhabib, another pan-Hezbo guy).
My past writing on Knollenberg’s Hezbollah funding, etc. has been making the rounds. A lot of conservatives want to sit this out (Knollenberg is not a conservative and supports gay marriage, gay rights, etc.). And Knollenberg, previously a recipient of a lot of Jewish campaign donations in this district with a significant Jewish population, are now supporting his opponent, Peters.
So, now, Joe Knollenberg is pretending to be tough-on-Islamic-terrorism with his fake bill to defund Jimmy Carter. It’s a win-win for him. He knows the non-binding bill will not do what he’s saying and that it will go absolutely nowhere in a Dem-controlled Congress, and he gets to go all over Detroit radio and TV–as he did yesterday on the Mitch Albom show–to sound like he’s against the same type of Islamic terrorism he’s been funding with your tax dollars for his entire career in Congress.
Don’t believe the hype. Joe Knollenberg is still Hezbollah’s Congressman and his sympathies against HAMAS are as phony as a $3 bill.
If you live in Joe Knollenberg’s suburban Detroit Congressional District, I urge you to vote for Gary Peters in November. A Congressman who supports Hezbollah with your tax dollars (and lies about it) is far worse than a liberal Democrat who has a blank record on the matter. Plus, it sends a message that support for Hezbollah in the Republican Party–a growing problem–will not be tolerated. The Democratic Party already supports terrorists and is beyond repair. Only the Republican Party can be saved . . . through tough love.
Joe Knollenberg is telling the media:

America must speak with one voice against our terrorist enemies.

Tell it to the mirror, Joe.

It sends a fundamentally troubling message when an American dignitary is engaged in dialogue with terrorists. My legislation will make sure that taxpayer dollars are not being used to support discussions or negotiations with terrorist groups.

Again, no it won’t. It’s a non-binding resolution, and you know it, Joe. Quit lying. And what about the fundamentally troubling message when an American Congressman send millions of tax dollars–not for dialogue with terrorists–but right to the terrorists’ coffers? When will we see Congressman Knollenberg’s binding resolution to make sure taxpayer dollars are not being used to fund the Hezbollah terrorist group?
Don’t hold your breath.
Not Paid For By Any Candidate or Candidate Committee.

By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
Although I am not Catholic, one of my heroes–Armando Valladares–is. Valladares, author of the moving, must-read “Against All Hope: A Memoir of Life in Castro’s Gulag,” has in important piece in today’s Wall Street Journal.
He writes about the Vatican’s decades-long enabling of Castro’s torture and oppression of Catholics (and other Cubans). Sadly, under Pope Benedict XVI, that repression and enabling continues.

Armando Valladares on Vatican’s Enabling of Cuban Oppression
In the late ’80s, when I worked on Capitol Hill during college, I had the memorable opportunity to hear this very inspirational, brave, heroic man–Valladares–speak and to meet him. The unspeakable torture he endured for over two decades in Cuban prison, merely for expressing mild distaste with Communism, gives him an important–but, sadly, not unique–platform from which to criticize the Vatican’s blind eye to repression and persecution of Catholics (and so many others) in Cuba. In his book, Valladares wrote of how his Christian faith enabled him to survive and get through it all.
Today he is shocked that such prominent Christian leaders turn the other cheek while their followers are oppressed in Cuba:

The Catholic Church has taken a hardline position against right-wing dictatorships. But in Cuba, the Church has been silent – or worse – ever since 1960, when Fidel Castro expelled hundreds of Catholic priests because they alerted their parishioners of the communist danger surfacing in government circles.
In one especially shameful episode in the 1980s, Ventura, Cipriano and Eugenio Garc??a Marin and their mother entered the nunciature in Havana to ask for political asylum. Two days later they saw several priests get out of a black limousine. They were special troops from Castro’s political police who entered the Holy See’s diplomatic mission with the authorization and complicity of the pope’s diplomats in Havana. The three brothers were executed, and their mother was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Cardinal Tarsicio Bertone’s visit to Cuba this February was a different kind of outrage. In statements by the Vatican secretary of state, published by L’Osservatore Romano shortly after the cardinal’s visit, the cardinal is quoted saying, contrary to historical fact, that Cuba’s Catholic Church is not a “persecuted Church.” He also described Cuba’s universities as “renowned centers of higher education.” In reality, they are sophisticated factories of atheism and apostasy. . . .
The Vatican’s diplomatic behavior helps prolong the agony of my sisters and brothers in Cuba, and creates a grave problem of conscience for loyal Cuban Catholics who expect better from the pope. It in no way diminishes their veneration to express respectful disappointment and even disagreement with the Vatican. . . .
Both the pope and President Bush have immense responsibilities before God and the Cuban people.

Read the whole thing.
**** UPDATE: Reader Louis, a Cuban-American, writes:

Great article about the Vatican’s blind eye to Cuba. My parents are from Cuba, and my Father told me how JESUITS helped the revolution! Castro was trained by Jesuit priests when he was younger I believe. . . . So that could be why Rome is silent. If they speak up the truth will come out of yet another travesty they helped. The Jesuits, in general, were so bad in Cuba that my father nearly lost his faith in God.

Definitely a tragedy.

By Debbie Schlussel
Remember George W. Bush’s big lie in a 2000 debate against Al Gore, when he said he opposed “nation-building”?
Well, as we know, while oil gushes daily in Iraq, WE–not the Iraqi oil profits–continue to pay for the Iraqi welfare state. Now, this ethos has extended to propping up the de facto Palestinian terrorist state.
With Americans hurting all over, getting evicted from their homes, and struggling in a recessed economy, President Bush has decided to form and bankroll a corporation to fund mortgages for new homes . . . for PALESTINIANS. Even worse, it’s in addition to hundreds of millions which American taxpayers already sent to pay for new businesses for Palestinians:

Father AND Funder of Palestinian Terrorist Welfare State

The Palestinian West Bank . . . got a boost on Monday: the announcement of a plan, led by the American government, to help tens of thousands of people buy homes.
The plan, which establishes a $500 million mortgage company, aims to build 10 new neighborhoods over the next five years and, in the process, create thousands of jobs in construction and real estate. In doing so, it could improve the depressed local economy and the political prospects of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, of the relatively pro-West Fatah party. . . .
A secondary aim of the housing program is to send a message to the Gaza Strip, run by the Islamist party Hamas, that its citizens, too, could benefit from international generosity and economic progress if they restore Fatah’s authority, overturned by Hamas forces in a battle last June.
The new company’s name, Affordable Mortgage and Loan Company, yields the acronym AMAL, an Arabic word meaning hope. . . . The new plan will make mortgages available for about 30,000 apartments. . . .
Half of the money for the new mortgage company, $250 million, will come from the United States through the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. . . . . At a ceremony in Ramallah, Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who is representing the international community in helping the Palestinian Authority build institutions, called the plan “a major step forward for ordinary Palestinians.”
This is the second major international initiative of its kind in the West Bank. Last summer, $230 million was pledged for a similar program for small- and medium-size businesses in the area.
Robert Mosbacher Jr. [DS: Another rich, preppy Bush friend of Daddy], the president of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, which was also involved in that endeavor, said about half a dozen loans had been made so far in that program. He said he hoped that the first construction in the housing plan would start this year.
“Our role is to deploy private capital as a soft power tool,” Mr. Mosbacher, a businessman from Texas, said after the ceremony held to announce the program.

Nauseating. Not only are you financing new homes for terrorists and their supporters in the Palestinian population, but the whole aim of this absurd program will fail. HAMAS is already in control of significant parts of the so-called West Bank, and it will take over, probably sooner than later.
Yup, American taxpayers financing homes and businesses for “poor” Palestinians who now support Fatah terrorists against Israel and will soon support HAMAS terrorists against Israel.
Your tax dollars “at work” for terrorism.
Well, I guess, technically, Bush didn’t lie when he said he opposed “nation-building.” He’s actually more into Terrorist State Building.
Would John Kerry and Al Gore have been any different on this issue? Would they really have been worse? Or just the same.

By Debbie Schlussel
When you watch this short, disturbing video, put yourself in the place of the being they are attacking. It’s not a stretch, because this is the same way they treat Christians, Jews, Westerners . . . when given the chance.

Islamic Elixir.