February 13, 2013

By Barry Rubin

While the State of the Union message was overwhelmingly domestically oriented, the foreign policy sections were most interesting. I’ll review them here.

The president began in the same neo-patriotic mode used in the second inaugural address, with a special emphasis on thanking U.S. troops. He used the imagery of the end of World War Two paralleling the return of troops from Iraq to promote his idea that the American economy must be totally restructured.

Obama defined his main successes—careful to credit the military (whose budget he seeks to cut deeply and whose health benefits he’s already reduced) rather than his usual emphasis on taking the credit for himself—were the following points:
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By Abigail Klein Leichman, Israel 21C

For 100 years, scientists searched for a way to deliver insulin orally instead of by injection. Now an Israeli team claims it’s found the solution. Phase 2 clinical trials are coming.

Swallowing a pill is much more palatable for diabetics than getting an injection. Photo via Shutterstock* 

Jerusalem’s Oramed Pharmaceuticals is one step closer to putting a groundbreaking oral insulin capsule on the market for people with Type 2 diabetes. The company is about to begin Phase 2 clinical trials on 147 people at about a dozen medical centers in the United States.
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By Daniel Greenfield, FPM

In 1986, at the closing session of the Communist Party shindig in the Karl Marx Theater in Havana, Castro had declared, “Let no one think that what I have here is a lengthy speech; it is the party’s program.” He then went on to speak for 7 hours and 10 minutes.

Obama’s ridiculous 6600-word marathon is also not a lengthy speech; it is the party’s program. The professional flatterers and fawners in the media have long since given up describing the teleprompter-in-chief as a talented speaker. These days Obama gives speeches that not only sound like they were read from a teleprompter, but also written by a teleprompter.

The obscene performance began with a celebration of an economic recovery that exists only in Washington, D.C., which has grown fat on the money that its corrupt political interests have stolen from the rest of the country, and ended by comparing a woman waiting in line to vote for him with a police officer who risked his life to stop a mad gunman.
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Seasoned politician such as Netanyahu should have known he’d pay a price for ‘two states’ speech

Elyakim Haetzni, YNET

The Likud party continues to look for the reason it was almost overthrown, but there are many reasons behind its failure in the recent elections. The main reason is the loss of faith. The prime minister made so many contradicting promises he did not fulfill that his supporters and haters alike gave up on trying to figure out the riddle: “Who are you, Mr. Netanyahu?”
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Nidra Poller:

… There is one category of the indigenous European population that is clearly persecuted by Muslim immigration: the Jews.

Not all Muslims attack Jews but virtually all anti-Jewish violence in France is committed by Muslims. And it is so widespread, so merciless, so stubbornly resistant that thousands of Jews have chosen to emigrate. Of those who remain, many valiantly devote their energies to denouncing the violence and trying to defend Jews against it. But no less shocking than the flight or fight choice imposed on Jews is the general indifference to their dilemma.

The expulsion of a few illegal immigrants can monopolize prime time news for days while most attacks against Jews are ignored by the national media. Those that are reported are twisted out of shape by fabricated ambiguity. The victim says he was beaten/knocked down/kicked/slashed/bombarded with anti-Semitic insults. The perpetrator denies the insults. The journalist gives equal credibility to the Jew-basher and the bashed Jew, and the story quickly drops out of sight. …

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