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How do you reshape Palestinian mind set? (See 1 and 1a below.)
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In a previous memo I wrote, once Russia admitted their plane was shot down by a terrorist Putin would reply forcefully and embarrass America and Obama's reticence by comparison. Not only has Putin done so but the French Premier has as well.
If Obama were a horse running in The Kentucky Derby I would bet on him to come in last and possibly not even make it to the finish line.
Neither could he make ISIS' JV Team!
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More resistance from a reasonable mind regarding Obama's arrogance and stubbornness over vetting Syrian refugees.
As I have written before, Obama loves to dig his heels in and then responds by setting up a distorted and petulant reply, ie/ Republicans are heartless for questioning proper, robust vetting by seeking a postponement because Syria has no reliable data base and those they have have been penetrated by ISIS.
What crap from the Administration and this pissy fanny president. The fact that we voted him in office and then re-elected him proves Dr. Gruber's belief, that we are stupid, is credible..
Where was Obama when the refugee situation, which he helped bring about by drawing red lines and then caving, began? What about the deaths he helped bring about in Libya, Iraq and even here in our own country because his contempt for practical solutions and unwillingness to even identify and characterize the enemy - radical Islamists?
This pitiful excuse for a leader has no credibility and should not be trusted because he has proven he constantly lies, has failed to uphold his oath of office and surrounds himself with "yes sir" sycophants who place job security above objective advice. In the case of our military it is their stars and pensions versus telling Obama the truth.
If his recent Iran Deal is not sufficient evidence then I am beyond an ability to convince. We were told about the safeguards, many of which have already been breached,and every time Iran has done so Kerry re-describes and re-defines what our real intention was and what we would now accept. (See 2, 2a, 2b and 2c below.)
More lunacy from our president. Be careful what you press for while disregarding Capitalism's accomplishments. (See 2d below.)
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An open letter to American Jewish Liberals. (See 3 below.)
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Did ISIS make a mistake and awake a sleeping giant? Time will tell.
I believe it will take a total change in American leadership before our nation returns to leading as we did over many decades and before Jimmy Carter set a lower bar allowing for Obama's election.. (See 4 below.)
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My friend and fellow memo reader catches up with Norman Podhoretz. (See 5 below.)
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It is only a matter of time before what goes around can come around and bite you.
Liberals and progressives live by Political Correctness. It is their bible. It dictates their thinking , behaviour and even drives their demands for senseless legislation.
Now that it is flourishing on college campuses and resulting in attacks on free speech Progressives are paying the price by getting bitten in their asses. How poignant!
Ah, but in the end it will also bite America's collective behinds and that will simply become another nail in our coffin. (See 6 below.)
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A Jew reminds a Muslim claiming he is a Christian what God and Christmas are all about. (See 7 below.)
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Dick
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1)Excerpts from the most recent Palestinian public opinion poll. - Stuart
Poll No. 200
The latest poll on the Palestinian public opinion, prepared by Dr. Nabil Kukali, revealed the following key results:
(62.3%) of the Palestinian public oppose the resumption of the peace negotiations
with Israel.
(68.5%) oppose the Russian intervention in Syria.
(43.5%) are optimistic about the perspective of an eventual reconciliation between
the two major movements, Fatah and Hamas.
(58.9%) are to various degrees discontent with the performance of the PA-president
Mahmoud Abbas.
(50.1%) are of the opinion that the media coverage in the Palestinian Territories is
not inflated.
(50.4%) are in favor of an outbreak of a third uprising (Intifada).
(42.1%) are in favor of a violent uprising, whilst (29.9%) favor, however, a
peaceful, popular uprising.
(47.8%) call for the resignation of the President Mahmoud Abbas.
Beit Sahour –Public Relations’ Section – by Adham Kukali:
The Peace Negotiations
(62.3%) of the Palestinian public oppose going back to the peace talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis under the prevailing conditions, whilst only (22.3%) of the respondents support that and (15.4%) declined to answer the corresponding question.
The Reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas
Regarding the question:”In view of the current political developments that are taking place in the Palestinian territories these days, do you feel optimistic or pessimistic about the perspective of reaching a reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas ?”, (43.5%) said they are optimistic,
(40.7%) are pessimistic and (15.8%) said:”I don’t know”.
The Position of President Mahmoud Abbas
With respect to the question:”President Mahmoud Abbas said that the leadership aims to achieve a political solution with peaceful terms, not with something else at all, so as to spare this country dangers that could bring upon all parties involved massive woes, destruction and misfortune. Do you support this statement, or not?”, (56.1%) said:”No, I don’t”, (28.0%) said “yes, I do” and (15.9%) said:” I don’t know”.
Supporting the Intifada
The poll results have revealed that (50.4%) of the Palestinian people support the outbreak of a third intifada, while (35.2%) oppose that and (14.4%) declined to answer the relevant question.
Nature of the Uprising (Intifada)
Regarding the question:”Supposedly, a third uprising (intifada) erupts; would you be in favor of a peaceful popular uprising (intifada) or in favor of a violent one ?”, (29.9%) of the respondents said:”in favor of a peaceful, non-violent, popular uprising”, (42.1%) are “in favor of a violent uprising”, (27.8%) said:”not in favor of either of them”, and (0.2%) answered:”I don’t know”.
The Stance of Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahhar
Responding to the question:”the member of the politburo of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahhar, said in a statement that the opportunity of an outbreak of a third intifada is available, and that in a likely more violent manner than that of al-Aqsa intifada (2. Intifada), stressing that the only solution for defending al-Aqsa is that the citizens of the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem should carry weapons. Do you support this statement or not ?”, (45.8%) said:”Yes, I support it”, (29.7%) said:”I oppose it”, and (24.5%) answered:”I don’t know”
1a)
A Less Awful Kind of Terrorism?
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Mistrusting Obama on ISIS—and Refugees
The president’s refusal to admit a policy error in Syria stirs uneasiness about how he is handling the humanitarian crisis.
You must understand: President Obama is accustomed to kid-glove treatment from most of the media most of the time. So when he was asked repeatedly at a Monday news conference in Turkey why he continues to insist that he never underestimated Islamic State (ISIS), and that his strategy against the terrorist outfit is working, it follows that he would become a little touchy.
“So, this is another variation on the same question,” snapped Mr. Obama at one point. “And I guess—let me try it one last time.”
His additional explanation failed, of course, not because he’s a poor communicator but because he is attempting to push a political narrative so spectacularly at odds with recent events. Inside of a month, ISIS, which already controls territory in Iraq and Syria, has claimed responsibility for crashing a Russian jetliner, along with bombings in Beirut and now the massacre in Paris. ISIS is targeting police officers, soldiers, concertgoers and soccer spectators. U.S. allies are nervous and the American public is afraid, yet Mr. Obama insisted that “we have the right strategy and we’re going to see it through.”
That White House strategy involves resettling in the U.S. next year some 10,000 displaced Syrians to help alleviate the worst refugee crisis since World War II. More than half of the nation’s governors, citing security risks, are balking at this prospect. The Republican-controlled Congress will almost certainly try to stop resettlement, perhaps by blocking appropriations for it. And history suggests that it will be a very tough sell with the public. In a national poll taken by Fortune magazine in 1938, only about 5% of respondents wanted the U.S. to accept refugees fleeing European fascism; two-thirds agreed that “we should try to keep them out.”
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. has admitted 1.5 million refugees and immigrants from the Middle East. That includes 1,500 from Syria since the war began there in 2011. Michael Chertoff, who led the Department of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush, told me Monday that our vetting process works. Unlike European nations that face swarms of people showing up unscreened at the border and creating pressure to be admitted, the U.S. has the luxury of physical distance from the conflict, which allows it to be selective, he said. All potential Syrian refugees are vetted in person in the region they are fleeing, not on U.S. soil, and they are subjected to biometric and other background checks against security databases. The main complaint of critics is that the process is too slow. “We dealt with this issue when we had people coming from Iraq during the war, and it’s quite lengthy—like an 18 months-plus vetting process,” Mr. Chertoff said. “While nothing is perfect, it was a secure and reliable way of making sure you didn’t let in people who were trying to come under false pretenses.”
Mr. Chertoff argues that continuing to admit Syrian refugees makes sense strategically. “It allows us to truthfully say that we’re not hypocrites or bigoted against Muslims or people from other cultures,” he said. “That has a positive impact in terms of the disposition people around the world have toward the U.S. You don’t want to play into the narrative of the bad guy. That’s giving propaganda to the enemy.”
What most concerns the law-enforcement community is not a fake refugee but a long-term resident who later becomes radicalized. The Tsarnaev brothers, who perpetrated the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, arrived in the U.S. on tourist visas in 2002 at the ages of 15 and 8. Radicalization is an increasing problem, evidenced by the fact that stories about young Americans trying to sneak off to join jihad are no longer uncommon.
One reason the U.S. has largely avoided the type of turmoil that places like France have experienced with disaffected Muslim youth is our enduring model of assimilation. America’s focus on shared values and ideals over shared cultures tends to produce religious moderates. The war on terror, however, is clearly testing that paradigm.
To the public, the merits of Mr. Obama’s pro-refugee arguments matter less than the growing perception that ISIS is ascendant and has the ability to strike where and when it pleases. If the president wants Americans to help him do something about a worsening humanitarian crisis, he ought to show them that he’s doing something about Islamic State other than misleadingly insisting that the group has been “contained” and that his strategy has been effective.
So far, people are unpersuaded—and that includes a growing number of those in the media who typically do his bidding.
Mr. Riley, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow and Journal contributor, is the author of “Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed” (Encounter Books, 2014).
2a)
National Security Insanity: Doing the Same Thing and Believing the Enemy Will Be Nice and Play Along
By Allen West
The first op-ed piece that I wrote forTownhall.com discussed the dangers of having a national security policy based, not on reality, but on campaign promises. One of the key tenets of leadership and strategy is to be adaptive and flexible (though not the type of flexibility President Obama articulated to Russian President Medvedev in 2012). We had a maxim in the military, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. That means you must have a basic plan but the most important aspect is that the plan allows flexibility, because the enemy always has a vote.
One decision has resulted in countless consequences. It was the decision made by President Obama to not adhere to the counsel of his military commanders referencing Iraq. Instead he stuck to his “plan” or, better put, evidenced his intransigent ideology and withdrew all military forces from the Iraq theater of operations. That decision had deadly consequences for some 130 who were killed and another 300 wounded last Friday in Paris.
And to think that the Friday of the attack, President Obama stated that ISIS had been “contained” and was losing strength. When you show a reticence to adjust and stick to your plan, then your reality and rhetoric is shaped to fit that which you prefer. In other words, the Obama administration will convey a policy narrative that fits what they want to believe, not reality. President Obama called ISIS the “JV team” because that enables him to stay with his plan of doing little to nothing. To admit anything else would mean a responsibility to adapt and shift to the reality confronting the president
On Monday, President Obama told reporters at the G-20 Summit in Turkey that the Paris attacks were a “setback” in efforts to fight the Islamic State. He defended the success of his current plans saying, “The strategy that we are putting forward is the strategy that is ultimately going to work.” Questioned about his earlier contention that ISIS is “contained,” the president defended his position, explaining that ISIS “control(s) less territory than they did last year.”
As reported by Politico and MSNBC, even Intelligence Committee ranking member Senator Dianne Feinstein challenged the president’s containment assessment and questioned Americans’ security, saying she has “never been more concerned…I read the intelligence faithfully. ISIL is not contained. ISIL is expanding.”
Over the weekend after the Paris attack, President Obama and his administration released five Yemeni detainees from GITMO. They tell us that these individuals pose no threat; that is the narrative that fits the Obama reality. But consider the optics of that decision to the enemy, they attack and kill us, we release them back onto the battlefield. The belief is that it is GITMO that makes the enemy hate us and want to kill us and if we just close GITMO they will be nice. Again, that is the insanity of wedding your national security strategy to a campaign promise – and a nice exhibit in your presidential library.
Even knowing that the systems are not in place to conduct a complete validation of incoming Syrian refugees, the Obama administration continues with that plan. FBI Director Comey has stated that he does not have the resources to “vet” every person. However, this past Sunday, Obama administration Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes stated that we do have the resources to do so. Why would we not cease the Syrian refugee immigration plan until we get this situation under control? Simple, President Obama is stuck on his plan.
We should not be allowing any military age males, especially single ones aged 16-40, into America and certainly not Europe. We must stop allowing the establishment of sanctuaries in our nations. Those have created problems in Belgium, now spilling over into France. Then again, after the Charlie Hebdo rampage, the trail then led back to Belgium. We have every knowledge of where the Islamic militancy is occurring – but we claim it is just free speech, or that the signs and chants are not real.
There are neighborhoods not being patrolled. Here in America we were told that surveillance is offensive and Islamophobic, a violation. After incidents occur, we continue to hear about this one or that one that was on a watch list. That is reactive leadership.
There is something horribly wrong with our passport tracking system if individuals are able to travel from our countries, go into Syria or other Islamic terrorist sanctuaries, and return. Two US soldiers were shot and one killed when a young black man from Memphis named Carlos Bledsoe did just that. He returned to enact his Islamic jihadist attack at the Little Rock Army recruiting station. No adjustments were made. Then we had the same thing happen in Chattanooga at a recruiting station and a Navy Reserve Support facility.
I often say, when tolerance becomes a one way street, it leads to cultural suicide. We have become so stuck on the plan of multiculturalism and political correctness that we have become paralyzed by fear. Fear of what, you ask? It is the fear of being referred to as an “Islamophobe” and other tools of the politically correct crowd that is used to cause censorship. We abdicate our right as a sovereign nation because we do not want to offend folks… yes, even the folks that seek our death and demise. Consider Vanderbilt University Professor Dr. Carol Swain, who is under attack from students there for being a racist. She is a black female professor who takes a stand against Islamo-fascism.
When the forces to be want to stick to their plan, their insanity leads them to attack those who have unplugged from their deceitful Matrix.
The Paris Islamic terrorist attack was a blatant display of the intention of this enemy, specifically ISIS. We will sing, have candlelight vigils, and some will ask why did it happen. It happened because we are in a millennia old conflagration. Lest you forget that it was in Paris late in the 1790s where John Adams and Thomas Jefferson met with the Dey of Algiers and asked, why was American shipping being attacked and our citizens being enslaved? He simply responded that they were commanded to do so to non-Muslims, infidels.
We fought the Barbary Wars for more than a decade. The difference then was that we sought victory.
The attack on Paris is a turning point. We need a leader who will stand up and say this is not about nation building; this is about a strike operation that will go in, confront Islamic terrorism and jihadism, and destroy it.
France has responded. Shall we? And, will we sustain that response or will we continue to evidence our national security insanity?
2b)
Kerry sees 'rationale' in Charlie Hebdo murders, unlike Friday's attacks in Paris
Secretary of State John Kerry suggested on Tuesday that there was a “rationale” for the assault on satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo, unlike the more recent attacks in Paris.
“There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that," Kerry said in Paris, according to a transcript of his remarks. "There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, OK, they’re really angry because of this and that.”
“This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn’t to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people,” he continued.
The attack on Charlie Hebdo, which took place in January, killed 12 people and was perpetrated by radical Islamic militants with ties to al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen. An al Qaeda statement claiming responsibility for the murders said they were retribution for the magazine's decision to run cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed, and to avenge the drone strike that killed Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
Friday's simultaneous attacks killed at least 130 people and wounded hundreds more, and have been claimed by the Islamic State, which said they were aimed at the “capital of prostitution and obscenity."
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush read comments from Kerry and Hillary Clinton during an event in South Carolina Tuesday. He said that Clinton had called for people to “empathize” with the enemy.
“There should be no empathy and there’s no rationale for barbaric Islamic terrorists who want to destroy Western civilization,” Bush said.
2c) Jeb to Kerry: there is no rationale for barbaric Islamic terrorism
Jeb Bush responds to remarks about ISIL on Tuesday.
Bush was likely referring to a December 2014 Clinton speech at Georgetown University during which the former secretary of state gave her definition of what she called "smart power."
"Using every possible tool and partner to advance peace and security," she said. "Leaving no one on the sidelines. Showing respect even for one's enemies. Trying to understand, in so far as psychologically possible, empathize with their perspective and point of view. Helping to define the problems, determine the solutions. That is what we believe in the 21st century will change — change the prospects for peace."
2d) The Alarming Thing About Climate Alarmism
2d) The Alarming Thing About Climate Alarmism
Exaggerated, worst-case claims result in bad policy and they ignore a wealth of encouraging data.
By BJORN LOMBORG
It is an indisputable fact that carbon emissions are rising—and faster than most scientists predicted. But many climate-change alarmists seem to claim that all climate change is worse than expected. This ignores that much of the data are actually encouraging. The latest study from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that in the previous 15 years temperatures had risen 0.09 degrees Fahrenheit. The average of all models expected 0.8 degrees. So we’re seeing about 90% less temperature rise than expected.
Facts like this are important because a one-sided focus on worst-case stories is a poor foundation for sound policies. Yes, Arctic sea ice is melting faster than the models expected. But models also predicted that Antarctic sea ice would decrease, yet it is increasing. Yes, sea levels are rising, but the rise is not accelerating—if anything, two recent papers, one by Chinese scientists published in the January 2014 issue of Global and Planetary Change, and the other by U.S. scientists published in the May 2013 issue ofCoastal Engineering, have shown a small decline in the rate of sea-level increase.
We are often being told that we’re seeing more and more droughts, but a study published last March in the journal Nature actually shows a decrease in the world’s surface that has been afflicted by droughts since 1982.
Hurricanes are likewise used as an example of the “ever worse” trope. If we look at the U.S., where we have the best statistics, damage costs from hurricanes are increasing—but only because there are more people, with more-expensive property, living near coastlines. If we adjust for population and wealth, hurricane damage during the period 1900-2013 decreased slightly.
At the U.N. climate conference in Lima, Peru, in December, attendees were told that their countries should cut carbon emissions to avoid future damage from storms like typhoon Hagupit, which hit the Philippines during the conference, killing at least 21 people and forcing more than a million into shelters. Yet the trend for landfalling typhoons around the Philippines has actually declined since 1950, according to a study published in 2012 by the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate. Again, we’re told that things are worse than ever, but the facts don’t support this.
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
This is important because if we want to help the poor people who are most threatened by natural disasters, we have to recognize that it is less about cutting carbon emissions than it is about pulling them out of poverty.
The best way to see this is to look at the world’s deaths from natural disasters over time. In the Oxford University database for death rates from floods, extreme temperatures, droughts and storms, the average in the first part of last century was more than 13 dead every year per 100,000 people. Since then the death rates have dropped 97% to a new low in the 2010s of 0.38 per 100,000 people.
The dramatic decline is mostly due to economic development that helps nations withstand catastrophes. If you’re rich like Florida, a major hurricane might cause plenty of damage to expensive buildings, but it kills few people and causes a temporary dent in economic output. If a similar hurricane hits a poorer country like the Philippines or Guatemala, it kills many more and can devastate the economy.
In short, climate change is not worse than we thought. Some indicators are worse, but some are better. That doesn’t mean global warming is not a reality or not a problem. It definitely is. But the narrative that the world’s climate is changing from bad to worse is unhelpful alarmism, which prevents us from focusing on smart solutions.
A well-meaning environmentalist might argue that, because climate change is a reality, why not ramp up the rhetoric and focus on the bad news to make sure the public understands its importance. But isn’t that what has been done for the past 20 years? The public has been bombarded with dramatic headlines and apocalyptic photos of climate change and its consequences. Yet despite endless successions of climate summits, carbon emissions continue to rise, especially in rapidly developing countries like India, China and many African nations.
Alarmism has encouraged the pursuit of a one-sided climate policy of trying to cut carbon emissions by subsidizing wind farms and solar panels. Yet today, according to the International Energy Agency, only about 0.4% of global energy consumption comes from solar photovoltaics and windmills. And even with exceptionally optimistic assumptions about future deployment of wind and solar, the IEA expects that these energy forms will provide a minuscule 2.2% of the world’s energy by 2040.
In other words, for at least the next two decades, solar and wind energy are simply expensive, feel-good measures that will have an imperceptible climate impact. Instead, we should focus on investing in research and development of green energy, including new battery technology to better store and discharge solar and wind energy and lower its costs. We also need to invest in and promote growth in the world’s poorest nations, which suffer the most from natural disasters.
Climate-change doomsayers notwithstanding, we urgently need balance if we are to make sensible choices and pick the right climate policy that can help humanity slow, and inevitably adapt to, climate change.
Mr. Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, is the author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist” (Cambridge Press, 2001) and “Cool It” (Knopf, 2007).
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3)
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I know we Israelis are supposed to endure whatever we suffer in guilty silence. Apparently, we deserve the violence in our streets and against our kids because of “the occupation,” which justifies any Palestinian crime, no matter how tangential, evil, counterproductive, or aimed at destroying us rather than at solving our problems. I know that after years of Israelis negating the exile (shlilat hagolah), we now have shlilat zion, negating Zion, with many American Jewish liberals bashing Israel while resenting the slightest Zionist critique offered the supposedly perfect, thriving, untouchable, American Jewish community. And yes, I know that Benjamin Netanyahu stumbled when blaming the Palestinian hero, the pro-Hitler Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, for Hitler’s Final Solution, and shouldn’t have appointed the undiplomatic Ran Baratz to head public diplomacy. But wandering Jerusalem with a can of pepper spray in my left pocket, an extra pair of eyes in the back of my head and numerous new holes in my heart, for all the innocents killed, wounded and traumatized, I wonder: were Netanyahu’s missteps really the last month’s biggest outrages? This isn’t aimed at you if you tweeted or emailed about Bibi’s boo-boos while also objecting to Mahmoud Abbas’s inflammatory lies, to the murdering of Israelis, to stabbing a 13-year-old Jerusalemite in the neck forcing him to fight for his life instead of preparing for his bar mitzvah, to Gideon Levy’s absurd claim in Haaretz that “even Gandhi” would turn violent if he were a Palestinian, or to any of the misleading headlines obscuring Palestinian violence yet blaming Israel. This isn’t aimed at you if you bothered checking in with an Israeli friend. This isn’t aimed at you if you backed some initiative to support Israelis (including adopting a victimized family, or ordering takeout from a now-empty Jerusalem restaurant to send to overworked security personnel). And this isn’t aimed at you if you wrote an open letter to US President Barack Obama saying that while you support him enthusiastically you abhor his morally equivalent “both sides are guilty” approach toward Israel when the Palestinians are so clearly guilty this time. But, with all the perverse, totalitarian, murderous, politically correct craziness aimed at Israel this month, if it was Netanyahu’s actions that got your goat – or finally moved you to react – this letter’s for you. I have no problem criticizing Netanyahu. I want Israel driving the peace train, applying the same creativity Israelis demonstrate in start-ups to diplomacy. And I can respect your concern for innocent Palestinians (although not their warmongering leaders, their incendiary imams, their bloodthirsty terrorists). But I resent the outrage gap, the disconnect between the fury Netanyahu’s minor bobbles trigger versus the silence or even support greeting major Palestinian crimes. I abhor the Blame-Israel-Firsters and Excuse Palestinian Terrorist Forever-ers. I cannot stomach the self-loathing epitomized by two supposed “lifelong Zionists” who choose this difficult time to champion boycotting Israel in The Washington Post, stupidly blaming “the recent wave of attacks” on Israel’s “losing the minimum of mutual tolerance that is necessary for any democratic society” without mentioning Palestinians’ anti-Semitic, antipeace culture that sings “Stab the Zionist and say God is great.” (We still sing “Oseh Shalom,” “He who makes peace,” and “Shir lashalom,” the peace song). I AM shocked that not one pro-Israel Democrat I know of has publicly denounced Obama for being so prickly in dealing with Israel, especially now. I know of no pro-Israel Democrat who publicly condemned Secretary of State John Kerry for blaming this round of violence on (nonexistent) settlement expansion. I know of no pro-Israel Democrat who has publicly admitted being fed up with Obama’s tendency to reward enemies like Iran while dissing friends, especially Israel. Where are the open letters to Obama from loyal Democrats? Where are the threats of freezing Democratic donations until policy toward Israel becomes more enthusiastic, less miserly? I get it. We Israelis annoy you. We embarrass you with our traumas, our fears, our enemies, our power, our guns, our messiness. It’s easy from 6,000 miles away to buy the Palestinian narrative that they are powerless, ignoring their perpetual refusal to compromise and our repeated attempts to compromise. It’s easy only to hear Israeli extremists and assume they are why we keep territory rather than remembering what happened during the Oslo Peace Process when our attempts to establish a Palestinian state ended with over 1,000 Israelis murdered by Palestinian terrorists, mostly because Yasser Arafat wasn’t Nelson Mandela and because Hamas derailed Oslo with suicide bombings. And it’s easy to see this mess through the three popular American Jewish prisms for viewing oppression – the American South, South Africa, or Nazi Germany. But we’re not Bull Connors or Jan Smuts or Adolph Hitler. The situation is closer to America’s urban ghettoes and the African-American underclass. Simplistic, one-word explanations or blame games don’t do justice to the multiple causes that make this problem so intractable. I don’t need anyone to agree with me or Netanyahu or anyone else. But I wish we could acknowledge the situation’s complexity, and be humbler, kinder, more flexible. And, yes, I wish for more support, more solidarity. I would love to hear liberals, Jewish and non-Jewish, echo Israeli Leftists who say, “I am anti-occupation, but also clearly, passionately, anti-terrorism. And, at this moment, with Israeli blood flowing, I stand tall and proud and passionately for Israel, as a Jewish state and as an embattled democracy fighting totalitarianism – especially after Paris.” And I would love to hear liberals connect the dots, admitting that the world’s tolerance for Palestinian terrorism was the gateway crime that helped encourage Islamist terrorism. Don’t worry, we can return to arguing about settlements when the violence subsides. And demonstrating loyalty during this bloodletting will improve your credibility in debating how to avoid the next one. The writer is the author of The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s, just published by Thomas Dunne Books of St. Martin’s Press. He is professor of history at McGill University and a Visiting Scholar this fall at the Brookings Institution. Follow on Twitter @GilTroy www.giltroy.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4)
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5)
Has World War III Begun? I Believe So.
By Sherwin Pomerantz
In June of last year Abu Muhammad al-‘Adnani, the official spokesman of the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS), announced the group’s rebranding as the “Islamic State,” declaring itself a Caliphate and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Caliph Ibrahim. He wrote:
“The time has come for those generations that were drowning in oceans of disgrace, being nursed on the milk of humiliation, and being ruled by the vilest of all people, after their long slumber in the darkness of neglect – the time has come for them to rise. The time has come for the ummah (i.e. the nation) of Muhammad (peace be upon him) to wake up from its sleep, remove the garments of dishonor, and shake off the dust of humiliation and disgrace, for the era of lamenting and moaning has gone, and the dawn of honor has emerged anew. The sun of jihad has risen. The glad tidings of good are shining. Triumph looms on the horizon. The signs of victory have appeared.
“So rush O Muslims and gather around your khalīfah, so that you may return as you once were for ages, kings of the earth and knights of war. Come so that you may be honored and esteemed, living as masters with dignity. Know that we fight over a religion that Allah promised to support. We fight for an ummah to which Allah has given honor, esteem, and leadership, promising it with empowerment and strength on the earth. Come O Muslims to your honor, to your victory. By Allah, if you disbelieve in democracy, secularism, nationalism, as well as all the other garbage and ideas from the west, and rush to your religion and creed, then by Allah, you will own the earth, and the east and west will submit to you. This is the promise of Allah to you. This is the promise of Allah to you.
“O soldiers of the Islamic State, you will be facing malāhim (fierce battles) that cause the children’s hair to become grey. You will be facing fitan (tribulations) and hardships of many different colors. You will be facing tests and quakes. No one will survive them except he whom Allah grants mercy. No one will be firm during these fitan except one whom Allah keeps firm. The worst of these fitan is that of the dunyā (worldly life). So be wary of competing over it. Be wary. Remember the greatest responsibility that is now on your backs. You are now the defenders of the land of Islam and its guards. You will not be able to preserve this trust and defend this land, except by fearing Allah secretly and publicly, then by sacrificing, being patient, and offering blood.
This is the enemy that so many in the west, particularly the political leadership in the U.S., is afraid to label Islamic fundamentalist extremism. Those who buy into the idea of ISIS or ISIL and hope for a Caliphate to emerge, understand that to make that happen all of the non-believers of the world need to be destroyed.
Seems to me, therefore, that what people don’t want to realize, because it is so troubling to do so, is that World War III has begun (it actually began a while ago). Once again we have a political entity (ISIS or ISIL, call it what you want) that has set out on a path to destroy western civilization as we know it, all in the name of fealty to their god. 60 years after the end of the last World War, when we thought everyone now understood the futility of 60 million people dying as a result, it is difficult to fathom how anyone in the world still believes that this is the way to solve problems.
But we are not dealing with an enemy that reasons logically. Rather we are faced with an entity that is driven by religious extremism and will do whatever it takes to bring the rest of us down. We, of course, cannot destroy that enemy without calling it what it is. The failure of the leadership of the most powerful nation on earth to recognize that fact and acknowledge it will contribute to the undoing of us all.
I hope we will be successful in defeating this enemy but it will not happen without, once again, the significant loss of lives. The sooner the leadership acknowledges that sad fact, the fewer people will die as a result. The longer we wait the higher the casualty rate. World War II should have taught us that lesson loud and clear. Had the West acknowledged the threat in 1939 and not tried to appease the maniacs fewer people would have died as a result.
In Egypt a few weeks ago the Russians and the Egyptians were taught a painful lesson with the bombing of a commercial airliner killing all 224 people aboard. The French were taught a similarly painful lesson last Friday night when over 130 were killed in multiple attacks in Paris. The U.S. should have learned its lesson in 2001 with the bringing down of the twin towers of the World Trade Center as the U.K. should have learned in 2005 when London was attacked. For the better part of 14 years we have watched radical Islam gird its loins for a clash of civilizations with the west and the response has been tepid at best, sorely lacking at worst.
To win this war the West will need to fight on the ground to root out every last vestige ofb this insanity masquerading as a political liberation movement. Yes, there will be a large loss of lives and sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers will return home in body bags. But if action is not taken now there won’t be enough body bags available to handle the casualties in a war delayed by the inactions of politicians who continue to dream about the merits of diplomacy. World War III has begun and we dare not sit on the sidelines this time.
In the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berachot 58a, it says clearly “If a man comes to kill you, rise up early and kill him first” which is based on what is written in the 22nd chapter of the Book of Exodus. There are people now who openly say they want to kill us and we have an obligation to rise up and kill them first, lest we all become slaves to their version of a political entity.
Sherwin Pomerantz has lived in Jerusalem for 31+ years, is President of Atid EDI Ltd. a business development consulting firm and a former National President of the Association of Americans & Canadians in Israel.
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Apparently the White House referred to Christmas Trees as Holiday Trees for the first time this year which prompted CBS presenter, Steven Levy, to present this piece which I would like to share with you. I think it applies just as much to many countries as it does to America.6)
When the College Madness Came to My Campus
The student protests are about power. And now that leftists have it, what good to them is free speech?
McKenna Auditorium on Claremont McKenna College campus in California. PHOTO: IMAGE COURTESY OF CLAREMONT MCKENNA COLLEGE
Claremont McKenna College was once deliberately out of step with academic fashion. I used to tell prospective students and their parents, liberal or conservative, that one of the best things about CMC was that it refused to enforce the little catechism of political correctness. Regardless of political beliefs on campus, I assured them, students did not have to worry about speaking up in class or being persecuted for their opinions.
That is now very much in doubt. Last week the turmoil stirred at Yale and the University of Missouri swept my campus. A coalition of self-proclaimed “marginalized” students presented a catalog of “microaggressions” they had suffered, demanding new forms of “institutional support” in compensation. Demonstrators, who included both CMC undergrads and a few unfamiliar, skulking adults, denounced the dean of students and humiliated her in an open-air trial. Two students went on a hunger strike. Within days, Claremont McKenna—a place I have been proud to call my employer for more than three decades—surrendered ignominiously. How and why did it happen?
Founded in 1946 in a quiet town about 30 miles east of Los Angeles, Claremont McKenna College set out to make sense of a world shattered by depression, war and totalitarianism. The first classes consisted almost entirely of demobilized GIs from World War II, who found familiar the Quonset hut classrooms then in use. The school focused its curriculum on politics and economics, with a healthy skepticism about the latest New Deal-style nostrums and a high regard for the lessons of America’s constitutional experience.
Opinion Journal Video
Editorial Board Member Joe Rago on the student-revolts spreading across college campuses. Photo credit: Getty Images.
Claremont McKenna never set out to be a true-blue conservative school. But it insisted that students hear conservative as well as liberal arguments, and its faculty eventually included some of the best students of Milton Friedman,James Buchanan and Leo Strauss. Their visibility, and the college’s promise to provide a genuine diversity, a diversity of reasonable ideas, meant that the college soon acquired a conservative reputation.
As the faculty expanded, however, it grew more hostile to the college’s original mission. The past two presidents encouraged the place to keep up with the spirit of the times. Now the examples of the University of Missouri and Yale have proved inspirational. Mizzou taught administrators that if they want to keep their jobs, they need to grovel early and often. Yale showed undergraduates that no matter how prestigious the college, the same rules applied, and that unloading F-bombs on professors, an act of incivility that once would have merited expulsion, is a trump card.
Unlike the hypothetical Halloween costumes that prompted the imbroglio at Yale, the dress-up that fanned the troubles at CMC actually happened. Two young women donned sombreros, ponchos and fake mustaches. A photo went up on someone’s Facebook page. Add this to a simmering controversy: After an aggrieved Mexican-American student complained that she felt out of place on campus, the dean of students wrote a poorly worded email pledging that the college was “working on how we can better serve students, especially those who don’t fit our CMC mold.”
On Nov. 10, Hiram Chodosh, CMC’s president, electrified the campus with an email saying he felt “very upset” about the Halloween-costume calamity. Remarkably, he called for a “sit-in in my office” to discuss things—perhaps the first time, as noted by historianSteven Hayward, that an administration ever called a sit-in to denounce itself. About 40 students showed up (of more than 1,200 in the student body). At 1:54 a.m. they emailed around a “Call to Action” with a list of demands and complaints of the students’ “feeling a strong pressure to assimilate and an inability to fully express their racial, ethnic, sexual, gender, and religious identity.”
That afternoon, President Chodosh replied with his own memo, announcing steps to satisfy the protesters, including two additional administrative positions on “diversity and inclusion”; a safe space to support new programming on the “campus climate”; “pro-active measures” to increase diversity in faculty hiring; and a “day of dialogue” in the spring, in preparation for which the administration “will provide in-depth facilitator training to faculty and staff in how to manage difficult conversations.” If not a complete embrace of the students’ demands, it came close.
Whatever the wisdom of his concessions, there was no disputing their efficiency. In 24 hours he agreed to measures that his administration had been discussing with the same students, it emerged, for seven months. Within 48 hours, the dean of students had resigned and a rump session of the faculty had issued its own statement calling for “diversity training for faculty,” ideally by next semester, and a thorough re-evaluation of the curriculum. The statement was quickly endorsed by 102 of my colleagues (a majority). I voted “no,” as did others, but somehow the dean of faculty did not report the number of those opposed.
The problem on campuses is that the elder members of the old New Left, and their spiritual descendants, are finding it impossible to object to the demands of the new New Left. In 1964 campus protesters kicked off the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley. Today’s students don’t have free speech high on their agenda, to put it mildly.
During the outdoor struggle session at CMC last week, an Asian student volunteered that she had once heard “go back to your home” shouted at her by a black person. “We should not distinguish people by their race or gender or anything. Black people can be racist,” she said. “I just mean that we have to look at people individually.” The crowd moaned disapproval and a young woman took back the bullhorn. Someone yelled that “racism is prejudice with power,” a shibboleth of the new New Left. Someone else shouted, “How is that relevant to the college failing to provide a space for people of color?”
That is what the protests are about: reordering campus in the name of the “marginalized” and their sponsors in the faculty and administration, whose turn has come to enjoy their own reign of intolerance. When the leftists lacked power, they embraced free speech. Now that they have power, they don’t need it.
Mr. Kesler is a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and the editor of the Claremont Review of Books.
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A little sanity please...
Only hope we find GOD again before it is too late!
The following was written by Steven Levy and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.
My confession:
I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.
Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.
In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking. In light of recent events, terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.
Then Dr. Steven Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said okay.
Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'
Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.
Are you laughing yet?
Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.
Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.
Pass it on if you think it has merit.
If not, then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.
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