THERE WAS never any chance for peace because the Palestinians have no interest in making peace with Israel. As the West's favorite Palestinian "moderate," Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview with Egypt's Dream TV on October 23, "I've said it before and I'll say it again. I will never recognize the 'Jewishness' of the State [of Israel] or a 'Jewish state.'" That is, Abbas will never make peace with Israel.

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So why do the likes of Sarkozy and Obama hate Netanyahu? Why is he "a liar?" Why don't they pour out their venom on Abbas, who really does lie to them on a regular basis? The answer is because they prefer to blame Israel rather than acknowledge that their positive assessments of the Palestinians are nothing more than fantasy.

And they are not alone. The Western preference for fantasy over reality was given explicit expression by former US president Bill Clinton in September.

Under international law, and under common sense and common decency, Israel has every right to interdict this weaponry and to inspect the ships that might be transporting them.

This is not a theoretical challenge or a theoretical threat. We have already interdicted vessels bound for Hezbollah, and for Hamas from Iran, containing hundreds of tons of weapons. In one ship, the Francop, we found hundreds of tons of war materiel and weapons destined for Hezbollah. In another celebrated case, the Karine A, dozens of tons of weapons were destined for Hamas by Iran via a shipment to Gaza. Israel simply cannot permit the free flow of weapons and war materials to Hamas from the sea.

I will go further than that. Israel cannot permit Iran to establish a Mediterranean port a few dozen kilometers from Tel Aviv and from Jerusalem. And I would go beyond that too. I say to the responsible leaders of all the nations: The international community cannot afford an Iranian port in the Mediterranean. Fifteen years ago I cautioned about an Iranian development that has come to pass – people now recognize that danger. Today I warn of this impending willingness to enable Iran to establish a naval port right next to Israel, right next to Europe. The same countries that are criticizing us today should know that they will be targeted tomorrow.

For this and for many other reasons, we have a right to inspect cargo heading into Gaza.

In orchestrating fierce attacks by Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton against Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Obama allowed his long-held anti-Likud animosity to blind him to basic political and diplomatic realities about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. As if Mideast diplomacy doesn't face enough hurdles, Obama has made things worse.

I just finished watching a 40 minute show (which is currently available on YouTube) by Glenn Beck called Exposed: The Extemist Agenda (originally aired on CNN). Its focus is to publicize the threats that are being posed to the world by extremist Islam. He takes care to make it clear that this is not representative of all of Islam (and at the end of the show, gives examples of people in the Arab world who are trying to spread the opposite message). However, the messages, propaganda, and hatred, of Jews, Israel and the entire Western world, are an extreme threat to world peace, and the safety and well being of perhaps anyone reading this. If you can spare the time to watch the show, please do so. Below are some notes that I took while watching the program:

Examples of propaganda showed:

• Series from Iran TV that features Israelis removing the eyes from Arab children
• Series from Jordanian TV that features Jews plotting to kill a Christian child for making Matzah on Passover (the classic Blood Libel)
• Cartoon from the official PA newspaper, showing Bush and Sharon drinking from a bottle of Palestinian blood
• An expose on Iranian TV about how Jews control Coca Cola (who is plotting to overthrow the government of Iran) and how Pepsi stands for "Pay Each Penny Save Israel" (which is kind of ironic since Pepsi was one of the countries who gave in to the Arab boycott of Israel for so many years).

Ahmadinejad & The Two Faces of Iran:

• On Iranian TV: "The whole world knows that America and England are the enemies of the Iranian nation". Compare this with what he tells US interviewers: "We love the American people as we love our own"
• On Iranian TV:"The rage of the Muslim peoples may soon reach the point of explosion. Death to Israel! Death to America!". On US TV: "We want peace to be established there (in Israel). We care for Jews that live under pressure there as well".
• To the world: "We are no threat to anyone. The issue of making nuclear weapons has no place in Iran's policy". To Iranian TV: "Today the Iranian people are owners of nuclear technology. If some believe they can keep talking to the Iranian people in the language of threats an aggressiveness, they should know that they are making a bitter mistake.
• "Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury".
• Netanyahu: "Iran is gearing up to produce 25 atomic bombs a year, 250 bombs in a decade...they are building missiles that will reach the Eastern seaboard of the United States. Like Nazism, they start with the hatred of the Jews, they want to annihilate the Jews, but that is only the first stop. The goal is Western civilization"

Suicide Bombing Propaganda:

• Video from Hizballah television, featuring an interview of a small boy describing how his father committed his act of suicide murder
• The goal of suicide bombers is to use the media to leap-frog over the military and directly reach the home audience.

How Hate is Taught to Children:

• Videos showing a three year old girl proclaiming that Jews are "apes and pigs".
• In a different video, a young girl cries out "With my soul and my blood I call upon thee, my country, with stones and with bullets I shall redeem you, my country, your martyrs and prisoners protect you, my country"
• A Kuwaiti sheikh in a video for parents, telling them what to teach their children: "We seek martyrdom. Oh mothers and fathers: You must train your children every night, before they go to bed, to go on raids in order to liberate Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, and when he goes to sleep...he should recite together with you the prayer for martyrdom...Do this every night"
• Childrens cartoons glorifying suicide bombings, specifically aimed at dehumanizing Jews and legitimating their murder
• Walid Shoebat testifying about how he has personally experienced (as a child) his teachers demonizing and dehumanizing Jews
• Brigitte Gabriel: The government of Saudi Arabia is funding 25,000 schools worldwide, supplying them with books full of hate, glorification of suicide bombers. From an eighth grade book (being used in the US): "Jews and Christians were cursed by Allah and turned into apes and pigs."
• Gabriel: "Political correctness is the disease that is killing the West. It is the apathy by which the Muslims are killing us one by one. We have got to throw it in the garbage, which is where it belongs. People have to develop the backbone to stand up to and identify the enemy, because the West right now is plagued with Islamofascism, a disease...that is going to kill our body unless we fight it and kill it first."

At one point in this video, Binyamin Netanyahu (former and perhaps future Prime Minister of Israel) talked about how Condaleeza Rice has said about Ahmadinejad that we should not pay attention to his words, and only consider his actions. He then talked about how a holocaust survivor told him that if there is one thing that he learned from Hitler, it is that when someone says that they are out to kill, murder and massacre you and your people, you had better listen.

Rice's prefered course of action may be more prudent politically, but it also is the most irresponsible thing that one can do in the face of the threats that are described in this video. Now is not the time to just sit back and pretend that these things are not going on. You have all been warned.

Elections are coming up next week in Israel. Polls (which traditionally are not reliable and usually tend to lean to the Left) have consistently given the Kadima party the most seats in the Knesset. However, things might not be as decided as Olmert thinks they are.