In an unprecedented move, the U.S. under the Obama administration has been conducting negotiations with Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, according to a senior PA negotiator and sources in the Israeli government.
The U.S. has been calling for the resumption of indirect talks, with Obama administration officials publicly proposing to serve as a go-between to facilitate dialogue between Israel and the PA.
Sources in both the PA and Israeli government told this column that talks are underway on a number of issues, including future borders and security controls for a Palestinian state.
A senior PA negotiator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said rather than act as an intermediary, the U.S. has been negotiating with Israel on behalf of the PA, assuming all Palestinian positions and bargaining with Israel from the Palestinian side.
That account was confirmed with sources in the Israeli government, who said such behavior by the U.S. government is unprecedented.
Speaking at a televised roundtable alongside Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan, a personal friend and recent adviser to President Obama decried “right-wing white brothers” who are attacking Obama and who “could even attempt to kill him.”
Cornel West, a race-relations instructor at Princeton, was speaking last Saturday at the “We Count! The Black Agenda is the American Agenda” conference in Chicago organized by talk show host Tavis Smiley. The event was broadcast on CSPAN.
Stated West, “There are a number of highly misguided right-wing white brothers and sisters who are engaged in assault and attack and could even attempt to kill [Obama]. So we have to protect our brother. There’s no doubt about that. And we have to keep track of those forces that will lie and degrade…. He is our brother. He needs to be protected.”
Calling Farrakhan “my dear brother,” West went on to claim, “America is an empire in relative decline because of corporate greed, military overstretch, war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, drones in Pakistan and still siding with right-wing forces in Latin America.”
West made similar remarks when he introduced Obama on stage at a 2007 Harlem fundraiser attended by about 1,500 people that served as Obama’s first foray into Harlem after announcing his Democratic presidential candidacy.
At the time, Obama took the stage calling West a “genius.”
This column previously reportedWest introduced Obama on stage at the fundraiser after first railing against the “racist” criminal-justice system of the “American empire.”
A scan of YouTube clips found West introducing Obama at the fundraiserwhile stating the “American empire is in such a deep crisis” and slamming the “racist criminal-justice system” and “disgraceful schools in our city.”
“He is my brother and my companion and comrade,” said West of Obama.
This reporter found a videothat shows Obama taking the stage just after West’s introduction, expressing his gratitude to West, calling him “not only a genius, a public intellectual, a preacher, an oracle … he’s also a loving person.”
Obama asked the audience for a round of applause for West.
Obama named West, whom he has called a personal friend, to the Black Advisory Council of his presidential campaign. West was a key point man between Obama’s campaign and the black community.
West served as an adviser on Farrakhan’s Million Man March and is a self-described personal friend of the Nation of Islam leader. West authored two books on race with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr, who was at the center of a recent controversy in which Obama criticized Gates’s treatment by police outside his home after a report of a burglary
EPA Chief On A Mission?
Does Environmental Protection Agency Chief Lisa Jackson view her post as an activist position that can be used to spread America’s wealth?
Jackson has given scores of speeches touting “environmental justice” and recently launched an initiative aimed at achieving “environmental justice,” a policy critics warn could be a ruse to spread the country’s wealth.
Anothertop administration official, Obama’s regulatory czar Cass Sunstein, recently wrote it is “desirable” to redistribute America’s wealth using “environmental justice.”
Meanwhile, Jackson, the first African American to head the EPA, routinely mixes environmental activism with racial politics.
Jackson has made remarks on race that seem to echo controversial statements by Obama’s former “green jobs” czar, Van Jones, who resigned in September after it was exposed he founded a communist organization. Jones previously stated his advocacy for green jobs was part of a broader movement to destroy the U.S. capitalist system.
In an EPA video announcing a new “environmental justice” initiative, Jackson opens with, “There are too many places in this country where pollution and environmental degradation fall disproportionately in low-income and minority communities. … We can’t stand by and accept those disparities. As a start we are building our environmental team.”
Similarly, Jones drew fire for remarks he made in 2008 when he claimed, “The white polluters and the white environmentalists are essentially steering poison into the people-of-color communities because they don’t have a racial justice framework.”
The concept of “environmental justice” permeates Jackson’s work.
What does “environmental justice” mean?
Wikipedia defines the concept as “an equitable spatial distribution of burdens and benefits to groups such as racial minorities, residents of economically disadvantaged areas, or residents of developing nations.”
Ross Kaminsky, writing at Human Events, calls Jackson’s concept of “environmental justice” a “leftist scheme to justify redistribution of wealth and the resulting regulations are not based on scientific evidence or cost/benefit analysis.”
Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief and senior reporter for Internet giant WorldNetDaily.com. He is also host of an investigative radio program on New York’s 77-WABC Radio, the largest talk radio station in the U.S., every Sunday between 2-4 p.m.
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