UNCLE SAM BOWS TO ARABS -- DUMB AND DUMBER

By Schmoel Yitzhak

Ever since Barack Obama's ill-advised, fawning attempt to gain Arab support with his late, lamented Cairo speech, we can describe Uncle Sam's policy vis-a-vis militant Islam with three words:

DUMB AND DUMBER.

The left-leaning Democrats guiding the president's misguided policies can't quite figure it out.

Each time an olive branch is directed toward a hostile Arab nation by Uncle Sam, his reward is somewhere between a return slap in his face or kick in the balls -- or both!

Syria's behavior vis-a-vis the United States offers as good an example of goodwill being offered and ill-will rebounding in return.

From the beginning of his presidency to the present, Obama -- dare I call him Oaf-bama -- has cajoled, kneeled before and importuned Iran and Syria to be nice; to understand that the world's most powerful nation desires friendship and will seek all peaceful means to accomplish that goal with virtually any kind of Arab entity.

In return, the U.S. Coveter-In-Chief gets mocked, insulted and generally treated like the head of a Fifth World Country.

Bashar Assad can tell you all about that; in spades.

Syria's president has been wooed by Obama every which way as Washington attempts to improve ties with Damascus.

This seemingly noble -- actually consummately naive -- gesture inspires a verbal face-slapping from Assad. That happened just the other day.

Assad's response to Obama's overtures was a declaration that America has sown chaos around the globe.

Assad then delivered a peroration that can only be described as making Obama look ever so dumb and dumber.

After all these rebuffs you would think that both the president and his Arab-loving State Department would be able to differentiate between foe (militant Islam, including Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, alias Lebanon) and friend, Israel.

How stupid is this American president? (If you answer "very," then you're guilty of understatement.)

This year he nominates the first U.S. ambassador to Syria since 2005 and the thank-you he gets is endless insult from Damascus.

I wonder how many kicks in the head Obama will receive before he wises up to his enemies.

Then again, when your political philosophy is right out of Mad Magazine, the answer has to be never!

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REMEMBERING RABBI KAHANE

Long before Rabbi Meir Kahane moved permanently to Israel he was an activist in Brooklyn, New York.

At that time, he organized the Jewish Defense League to protect blocs of Brooklyn Jews who were being primarily targeted by hostile African-Americans.

Despite the fact that the JDL was effective in its work, Kahane was branded as some kind of nut by centrist Jews reminiscent of American Jews who turned their backs on Holocaust victims during World War II.

Kahane made the words "Never again" very real and gave succor to those in distress.

During an interview with him at the height of his fame -- or infamy, if you were on the soft side - I interviewed the rabbi. Despite the characterization of him as foolish right wing radical, I found Kahane realistically sensible and keenly aware that Jews still were being targeted -- even in heavily-Jewish Brooklyn -- for no other reason than that they were Jews.

I came away from our meeting confidently believing that the man practiced what he preached and that he was right on the mark.

Thus, it was heartening for me to know that the 20th anniversary of his assassination was marked by an enormously large turnout of supporters in Jerusalem.

If Israel had more Kahane-like figures among its leadership, the country would be a lot more stronger -- in every way -- than it is today!