RUSH: By the way, a programming note. In our one o’clock hour tomorrow Eastern time we’re going to be talking for a half hour or so to Andrew McCarthy, who has written a book. It’s The Grand 
Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America. It is especially timely given what’s happening in Israel via this flotilla, the misreporting regarding the Israelis with this flotilla incident over the weekend. The Israelis and the Egyptians set up blockades to prevent more weapons from getting to Hamas in Gaza. It was purely and simply that. The Turkish government, which is now aggressively throwing in with Iran and even Hugo Chavez, led this provocation. You know, Turkey is in NATO. I’m going to tell you a little story. During my troop visit in February of 2005 to Afghanistan, we were in Kabul. That was our base of operations and we went to the airport in Kabul. We were supposed to fly out. We weathered in or we had a mechanical on the C-130 and we weren’t able to leave. We were taken in by the NATO commander of the airport into his office for a chat, about 20 of us with USAID for International Development; Mary Matalin was there, a bunch of us.
I remember this Turkish Air Force general who was in charge of the NATO air command there. He was one of the most impressive guys. I really got along with him very well. We ‘traded business cards,’ and e-mail address and so forth, even though I don’t have business cards. He spoke English perfectly well. He was very proud of NATO and what they were doing in Afghanistan and so forth. But he also talked a lot about his religion, treated us to many philosophies of the Prophet, particularly regarding love and marriage. I think his daughter or son was getting married soon. He was going to be going home for it. He was perfectly delightful. Back in that time Turkey was a Muslim country but one of Israel’s staunchest allies, just a short number of years ago. That’s not the case now. Islamists have taken over the Turkish government and orchestrated this episode with the flotilla and the blockade of Hamas and Gaza. The Turkish government led this provocation and they’ve now thrown in with Iran. They’ve thrown in with Hugo Chavez.
The big issue here is what has happened to Turkey’s government over the last several years as the Islamists have taken charge. I guarantee you this NATO general from Turkey — who invited us all to Turkey, ‘Istanbul,’ if we ever wanted to go. I guarantee you this guy was not militant in any way, shape, manner, or form. He was at war with militant jihadists leading the NATO Air Force, or the NATO air division out of Kabul where the so-called international airport was. The alliances that the Islamist Turkish government have, not only threaten Israel but they threaten us because they are still in NATO. You could almost look at it as the wolf’s underneath the tent, the wolf’s gotten in the tent in a way. And to understand this — and I’m going to be asking Andy specifically about this tomorrow so he can elaborate on it because he spent a lot of time writing this book: The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America. But to understand this incident and many other things happening around the world regarding all this you have to read Andy’s book. Obama has obvious hostility towards Israel, and the United Nations now condemns Israel and demands explanation.
But there’s no question. Obama’s treatment of Benjamin Netanyahu? I mean, Netanyahu comes to Washington, he’s in the Oval Office, and he doesn’t get any photo session, certainly not a state dinner. He doesn’t even get lunch! Obama says (doing impression), ‘This settlement plan, it ain’t working. I’m going to see my family for dinner. You got three hours. I want to see major changes when I come back.’ That kind of treatment of an ally we don’t hear about much in our American history. Israel is being treated as the problem in the area. Everybody talks about ‘a nuclear-free Middle East.’ What everybody’s angling here for, what the Obama administration may not understand (or they may understand it which makes it even worse) is a Jew-free Middle East. That’s what they want. They want an Israel-free Middle East. Obama is putting pressure on Israel. The way he’s treated Benjamin Netanyahu, his public attempts at pacifying the Muslim world and now condemning Israel for this planned provocation has emboldened Israel’s enemies and ours.
Look at the Obama campaign. The sea levels were going to begin to go down. They were going to stop rising. The planet was going to heal. We were going to reestablish America’s image. I don’t care where you go, we have a festering bloodbath! North and South Korea are about ready to go to war with each other. This thing with Israel and Turkey. The Egyptians are now involved. Hamas and Gaza. The Iranians are nuking up. They got enough uranium for two bombs, it’s now said. In our own hemisphere, Hugo Chavez is running wild, nationalizing things and trying to rabble-rouse the entire South American continent to anti-United States positions. The ChiComs own all of our debt, or a lot of it. The Russians are in bed with a lot of our enemies. Everything that was supposed to be utopia now is fast on the way to hell and it’s understandable if you realize that we have an administration that hasn’t the foggiest idea about the reality of any of this. They have their theories that they have been taught and that they have taught and that they have believed all of their young years. ‘The United States is the problem in the world. Our military is the focus of evil. We have mistreated the poor peoples of the world, stolen their resources, enriched ourselves! We’ve created poverty. We’ve created terrorism. We’re responsible for racism, sexism, bigotry, homophobia, all of this.’
This is what Obama’s people believe. And, of course, our enemies are just ready to jump on that bandwagon as quickly as they can. ‘Yeah, you’re right.’ and Obama says (doing impression), ‘If I just go out and say what our enemies want to hear, they’ll turn around and respect me and like us.’ That’s not how it works. If you go out and say what your enemies want to hear, they just think you are a wolf in sheep’s clothing. You are weak. You are a pansy. You are waiting to be had. It is music to their ears. I don’t care if you’re talking about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, if you’re talking about Putin, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong-il. I don’t care who it is. When they hear Barack Obama apologizing for and criticizing his own country, they love it! They absolutely love it. Isn’t it striking how often the things the president says about this country are similar to what our enemies say about it?
It’s amazing to go back to the campaign of 2008 and listen to some of the things that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was saying about this country compared to Democrats and what they were saying about it? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, what he was saying about Bush, what he was saying about the war in Iraq was no different than what any Democrat from John Kerry (who served in Vietnam, by the way) to Jay Rockefeller to Nancy Pelosi to Dianne Feinstein, you name it. John Murtha. They were all saying about the United States and Bush and Iraq, and they weren’t even embarrassed by it. Our Democrats weren’t. But that’s not even the worst of the situation. There’s something that’s really infuriating me regarding our relationship with Israel.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: It was the United Nations. It was not the US. I misread the Chyron graphic. It was on MSNBC. They’re not in high definition. They show up very small on the screen here for some reason. But the United States has not condemned Israel. The United Nations did.
Now, about Turkey, the Turkish group behind this flotilla is called the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief, or the IHH. They want to overthrow the Turkish government and impose Sharia law in Turkey. Now, the Turkish government has gone more and more Islamist, but the IHH wants them to go much farther than they have. The Turkish military is what’s keeping them sane, quote, unquote, within limits. The IHH, by the way, this Turkish group was behind the millennium bomber in 2000. So that’s who it is that sponsored this so-called peaceful humanitarian flotilla that got into the contretemps with Israel. Now, something is not getting enough mention. It hit the news wires a couple days ago. ‘Washington’s unprecedented backing for a UN resolution for a nuclear-free Middle East that singles out Israel has both angered and deeply worried the Jewish state although officials are cagey about openly criticising their biggest ally.’ This is the French News Agency, by the way. ‘The resolution adopted by the United Nations on Friday calls on Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and urges it to open its facilities to inspection. It also calls for a regional conference in 2012 to advance the goal of a nuclear-free Middle East.’
Now, if the IAEA is out there saying that Ahmadinejad and the Iranians have enough uranium for two nuclear bombs, you have to figure that they have enough for 20, and yet here’s the focus on Israel at the United Nations. ‘Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East, with around 200 warheads, but has maintained a policy of deliberate ambiguity about its capabilities since the mid-1960s. The document, which singles out Israel but makes no mention of Iran’s controversial nuclear program, drew a furious reaction from the Jewish state who decried it as ‘deeply flawed and hypocritical.’ But it was US backing for the resolution which has caused the most consternation among Israeli officials and commentators, who interpreted the move as ‘a resounding slap around the face’ which has dealt a very public blow to Israel’s long-accepted policy of nuclear ambiguity. Publicly, the Israel government has not criticized the US position but privately, officials expressed deep disappointment over the resolution, which Washington backed despite intensive Israeli efforts to block it.’
So Israel is supposedly an ally. Now, you tack this on to this flotilla PR bonanza for Hamas, Gaza, the Palestinians, Islamists, you name it. You tack this onto it and you’ve got a major problem. Here’s the United States undercutting its own ally at the UN. Here’s Israel. Its policy on whether or not they have nukes is ambiguous. They have never confirmed it. So Egypt comes up with, ‘We need a nonproliferation treaty! Israel’s gotta sign a nuclear-free Middle East.’ The US said, ‘Yep, by 2012 we want this,’ which is forcing Israel’s hand to admit that they do or don’t have them — and Iran is not even mentioned here. Now, you add this to all this other stuff and what I was saying moments ago, sending a message to our enemies that it’s okay to attack Israel because we are not going to back ’em up. This is unheard of in our modern day relationship with Israel.
You remember how Obama decided we needed to announce our own nuclear stockpiles and we’re going to reduce them and so forth? That was all, I’m sure, a setting up of this push to force Israel to reveal their nuclear arsenal and the details there. Because otherwise why announce our stockpile? It made no difference. Everybody knows we’ve got nukes. Everybody knows we’ve got enough nukes to nuke everybody else and still survive. So Obama says (doing impression), ‘Yep, we’re going to get rid of our nukes. Plug the hole! We’re going to make sure we have an agreement with the Russians.’ Why do this? You know, this is putting pressure on the Israelis to do the same, to make them come clean with the existence or nonexistence of their nuclear capability. They say that one of the hallmarks, one of the more salient hallmarks in a psychopath is his inability to tell his friends from his enemies. You can ask Dr. Krauthammer, a psychiatrist, about that. One of the more salient hallmarks of a psychopath is his inability to distinguish his friends from his enemies, and this is just hard to comprehend here, the way we’re treating Israel in this situation. Well, the way we’ve been treating Israel since this administration and this regime was immaculated. We’ve never seen it before, and of course I do care about motive. A lot of commentators say, ‘Well, motive is not our concern here. We simply report the facts. You decide, we report.’ Motive matters to me. Ask any lawyer going into trial on murder about motive. You have to have it or you hope you have it. It’s one of the great tools in establishing guilt.