CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, June 8, 2009

Out of the closet: It’s Hussein!

While speaking at Cairo University, Barack H. Obama -- making sure to emphasize that his middle name is Hussein -- called for a new beginning between the United States and Islam. Accordingly, CBS News hailed him as: “The hope of the Muslim World.”

Just what the Muslim World and CBS News are hoping for is unclear; however, by meeting with the King of Saudi Arabia twice in the last 62 days and not bothering to visit Israel (Cairo to Tel Aviv is the same distance as Chicago to St. Louis, about 250 miles) BHO’s snub of Israel could not be more clear.

Moreover, the Cairo speech perpetuated the myth that crimes against Islam were committed at Club Gitmo. That has never been established neither by Congress nor the Courts, civil or military. In fact, Club Gitmo stands as a model prison for holding the detainees that not one of Candidate Obama’s 57 States will accept.

The Team Obama speech-writers should consult a world almanac. Prior to arriving in Cairo, BHO claimed that the United States is one of “the largest Muslim countries.” Actually, in terms of its Muslim population, the U.S. ranks number 48.

If BHO intends to community-organize the Near East, he would be well-advised to take actual history into account instead of trying to create the impression that the Israelis are the interlopers, that they are Abraham-come-lately to the Land of Canaan, which is present-day Israel.

Actually, Hebrews have been in the “land of milk and honey” since about 5,000 B.C. The Old Testament records how Abraham brought even more Hebrews to the Holy Land circa 2000 B.C. That was about 2,600 years before the founding of Islam, in 627 A.D.

Former British Prime Minister, Lord Balfour, was known to say: “The Christian religion and western civilization owe to Judaism an immeasurable debt, shamefully ill repaid." In 1917, when Balfour was serving as British Foreign Secretary, Great Britain decided it was time to repay that debt.

On November 2, 1917, some 1,847 years after the Romans expelled the Jews from what the Romans called “Palestine,” Great Britain issued the Balfour Declaration: “His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

It would, however, be another 31 years (1948) before the United States and the United Nations officially recognized the Jews as being reestablished in their rightful homeland. (See: Barbara Tuchman’s Bible and Sword; The Reader’s Digest History of Man: The Last Two Million Years; and H.G. Wells’ The Outline of History.)

According to the Koran, the Muslim claim to Jerusalem is based on a dream recorded by the Prophet Muhammad in which he saw himself ascending into Paradise from a Jerusalem hilltop. Muhammad, by his own admission, never set physical foot in Jerusalem. Actually, Muhammad died in Mecca in 632 A.D.

Facts not withstanding, Muslims have a perfect right to believe whatever they want to believe. But when Muslims try to exclude the Israelis from their ancient homeland, and even deny the right of Jews to exist, the Israelis have the right of self-defense. Since 1948, the neighboring Arab armies have tried and failed four times to drive the Israelis into the sea. Now, almost daily, Palestinian rockets rain down on Israeli schools, synagogues and market places.

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, puts it this way: “If the Muslims stop attacking, there will be peace. If we Israelis stop defending, there will be no Israel."

William Hamilton, a syndicated columnist and a featured commentator for USA Today, studied at Harvard’s JFK School of Government. Dr. Hamilton is a former assistant professor of political science and history at Nebraska Wesleyan University.

©2009. William Hamilton.

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com