When in doubt, blame the Jews...

The President of the Sudan has real chutzpah....

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir escalated his rejection of the United Nations deploying peacekeepers in Darfur, calling them neo-colonialists and accusing Jewish organizations of pushing for their deployment.

His comments, made while a joint UN and African Union team was in Sudan planning for such a deployment, is likely to increase tension with the UN Security Council and provoke an angry response from US legislators.

A Security Council delegation toured Darfur early this month. The US and Europeans have been pushing for a large UN force to take over peacekeeping in Darfur from the African Union's poorly equipped 7,000 troops, who have been unable to halt the violence in the west Sudanese region.

When journalists pressed al-Bashir on his objection to UN troops in Darfur, he replied: "It is clear that there is a purpose behind the heavy propaganda and media campaigns" for international intervention in Darfur.

"If we return to the last demonstrations in the United States, and the groups that organized the demonstrations, we find that they are all Jewish organizations," al-Bashir said.