The skunk has replaced the Eagle as the symbol of the current American Presidency. It is half black, half white, and most everything it does stinks!
I base this comment on:
Lies about The IRS, Benghazi, Releasing Gitmo Captives knowing they will return to kill Americans, Keeping Your Doctor, Gun Sales to Mexican Drug Lords, The Iran Deal, excessive use of Executive Orders to skirt Congressional and the president's Constitutional authority and above all, initiating policies that have harmed our nation's security, reduced our military capability to pre 2d World War levels,placing the interests of our adversaries over our closest allies, instituting economic and bureaucratic policies that have been harmful to those seeking work, wasteful spending. and adding, with abandon, to our crippling debt.
===I wish to pose two simple questions.
If a person cares more about protecting their personal information than the most critical secrets of our nation do they deserve to be president?
If a person is engaged in building their personal wealth while supposedly serving their nation's interests should that be taken into consideration were they to run for The White House?
===Take away their guns and they become Samsons. (See 1 below.)
The same for free speech. (See 1a below.)
===
Did Obama appoint a Jewish Ambassador so he could manipulate and could claim legitimacy?
J Street is another organization of misguided Jews who are themselves anti-Semitic and financed by those of the same mentality. Most J Streeters are young and feel threatened by being Jewish, have no emotional connection to Israel, are easy prey and capable of being manipulated. .
The anti-Israel bashers are stone deaf because they have an anarchist agenda that demands chaos and dictates Israel's destruction so they must they keep the pot boiling. (See 2, and 2a below.)
===
Mexicans are angry and we remain stupid. (See 3 below.)
===
Elijah Cummings is a political hack. He has been re-elected time and again because he comes from a Congressional District which consistently returns him to office. Thus, he has gained tenure which has given him clout. He has also been generous with taxpayer money. Furthermore, he is a shill for Demwits and does everything in his power to throw monkey wrenches in Congressional investigations.
He did so recently during the Benghazi Hearings and when he heard his office leaked committee hearing information he said he would resign from Congress if this was proven to be the case. Then he recanted.
Also, Whoopi Goldberg said she would leave America if Trump was elected. I am sure Donald can find her a foreign hotel room.
Perhaps he can get them both a suite.
Cummings is symptomatic of what is wrong with our government and why far too many voters are turned off and feel cheated. It was never intended for politicians to become professional ones. they were supposed to serve and then return home after a few years and get an honest job.
As for Whoop she is not a politician she is just a big loud mouth with a tiny brain.
And on the Hillarious front the drip, drip, drip continues! The faucet of bad information is beginning to leak badly. Maybe she needs to call upon Obama's campaign nemesis "The Plumber Guy."
===
Let's hear it for those moderate Muslims. (See 5 below.)
===
More humor from my beautiful British friend, Heidi and fellow memo reader.
And is, is , is! (See 6 below.)
===
Dick
========================================================================
1)
Can We Prevent the Death of the First Amendment on U.S. Campuses? [video]
First Amendment Smackdown at Missou. Nov. 9, 2015.
Photo Credit: YouTube
These students surrounded the reporter, blocked his vision, sought to intimidate him, repeatedly misinforming him about his and their rights. It was a perfect if hideous example of an ugly mob mentality acting on its own uninformed ugliness. Each member of the mob drew strength from his and her peers, each feeling entitled, and then convinced of that entitlement, to treat another human being in a blatantly inappropriate, abusive manner.
At least one legislative body has responded to the recent rush to dump the First Amendment as a "white privileged" concept. A Missouri legislator is seeking to impose a requirement that university students at Missouri public colleges and universities learn a thing or two or more about the very first enshrined right in the Bill of Rights.
If enacted into law, Missouri's House Bill No. 1637 would require all students attending a two- or a four-year college in Missouri to complete a three credit course on the freedom of speech, both under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Missouri Constitution.
The courses that will satisfy this requirement will also include a study of the history of suppression of speech in the U.S. and in other countries, as well as the concept of freedom of inquiry.
The bill invests the Missouri department of higher education with promulgating the necessary rules and regulations to flesh out this requirement.
The sponsor of this bill is Missouri House member Dean Dohrman (R-51). He mentioned the university professor's effort to enlist students to help block journalists from covering the out of control school protest, when he informed constituents that the First Amendment was under attack..
Dohrman also shared the problematic results of a Pew poll which revealed that a frighteningly high percentage, 40 percent, of so-called millenials - people aged 18 - 34 - would be in favor of banning speech that is offensive to minorities.
That age cohort of Americans in favor of blanket censorship for offensive speech is vastly higher than for older (27 percent for Gen Xers, age 35 - 50) and much older (24 percent in favor of the censorship for Baby Boomers, age 51 - 69) and older still Americans (only 12 percent of the so-called Silent Generation (70 - 87 years old favor the censorship). Dohrman recognized the increase in support for censorship as a problem, and he decided to take action.
Hard to guess what Dohrman will say upon hearing about the column written by a Duke University graduate student in the Duke Chronicle this week. In his column, "Free Speech, Black Lives and White Fragility," Bennett Carpenter discusses the "diversionary and duplicitous obsession with the First Amendment."
Carpenter sees the First Amendment as almost beside the point, because, in his view, hateful, racist speech is action, and it needs to be shut down.
The Duke grad student is not willing to call for legislation outlawing hate speech, not because that would be oppressive or wrong, but because he does not trust the legislature, which is inherently racist, to construct the bar correctly. Instead, his preferred method is to turn over the policing of language to anti-racist activists. These are the people whom Carpenter wishes to empower to "calling out and shouting down every expression of white supremacy as we work to build a genuinely free society."
Sound like a good plan?
Here is the video of the Missou students drawing on their mob "anti-racist activist" mentality, doing what Duke's graduate student of literature and student journalist Carpenter see as a model for speech patrol duty in America.
About the Author: Lori Lowenthal Marcus is the U.S. correspondent for The Jewish Press. A graduate of Harvard Law School, she previously practiced First Amendment law and taught in Philadelphia-area graduate and law schools. You can reach her by email:Lori@JewishPressOnline.com
1a)
1a)
Dershowitz: I Need Armed Guards When I Speak in Favor of Israel on Campuses
Attorney and Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz appeared on Fox & Friends to speak about free speech on campus and explained that he need armed guards when he speaks about Israel at universities.
“In fact when I was first teaching in the ’50s there were attempts to censor speech by Senator McCarthy,” Dershowitz said. “The right-wing was trying to censor left-wing speech. Now it’s the hard left that’s trying to censor right-wing speech, conservative speech, Christian speech, pro-Israel speech, you name it. And this idea of safe spaces we have to distinguish between safe spaces for ideas, there should be none, and physically safe places where you’re not intimidated or you’re not threatened. And Christian speakers, pro-Israel speakers, speakers that are not politically correct today, have their physical safety endangered. I know when I speak on college campuses in favor of Israel, I need armed guards protecting me from radical leftist students who would use physical intimidation. They won’t give me a safe space. They won’t give pro-Israel students a safe space, they won’t give Christian students a safe space. For example, when a group of Christians who were against abortion said all lives matter, and you know, you may agree or disagree with that formulation, they were attacked. They were told to be subject to training, and sensitivity, and the president of Smith College had to apologize for using that term.”
2) Are There Double Standards in Israel’s Application of the Rule of Law in the Territories?
By Amb. Alan Bakerhttp://jcpa.org/are-there-double-standards-in-israels-application-of-the-rule-of-law/
In comments to the Institute for National Security Studies International
Conference on “Changing the Rules of the Game” on January 18, 2016, U.S.
Ambassador Daniel B. Shapiro referred to the rule of law in the West Bank.1
He asserted that “at times there seems to be two standards of adherence to
the rule of law – one for Israelis and another for Palestinians.”
Regrettably, there would appear to be a lack of understanding – whether by
Ambassador Shapiro himself or by those senior State Department and White
House officials who instruct him – as to the legal situation prevalent in
the West Bank areas of Judea and Samaria.
Indeed, there exist two legal frameworks.
The one applied by Israel’s Civil Administration vis-à-vis the Palestinian
residents of Judea and Samaria is based on the international norms regarding
the administration of territory occupied or administered following armed
conflict and pending a peace agreement. These norms, set out in the 1907
Hague Rules and 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, enable an administering
power, in administering a hostile local population, to impose various
limitations on the basic freedoms that exist in any ordinary civil legal
system. All this pending a permanent peace arrangement regarding the fate of
the territory.
The second legal framework covers the Israeli residents of towns, villages
and other forms of settlement within the territory, who, not being part of
the local Palestinian population, are subject on an ad-personam basis to
Israeli law. As such, they are not covered by those limitations that apply
solely vis-à-vis the local population of the territory.
Unlike the insinuations in Ambassador Shapiro’s statement, this dual set of
legal frameworks is not based on any double standards, but on a clear
division of legal authorities dictated by both international humanitarian
law and Israeli law.
Both these legal systems, whether that administered by the Civil
Administration or that governing Israeli residents in the area, require
strict adherence to the rule of law and the concomitant rules of natural
justice. Any and every crime has to be investigated and the perpetrator
brought to trial in the appropriate court of law.
Criminal procedures for investigating crimes are in the hands of the
appropriate police and security authorities and are dependent on the
available sources of evidence, witnesses and the like. As such, each case
can only be dealt with based on its own particular circumstances. Sweeping
generalizations, such as those uttered by the U.S. ambassador, are out of
place.
All instances, without exception, have to be dealt with in the proper manner
and with the appropriate alacrity as the specific facts of each case enable.
Therefore, the insinuations by Ambassador Shapiro regarding “unchecked
vigilantism and double standards” should be rejected outright as an
unjustified intrusion into Israel’s legal and investigative procedures.
* * *
Notes
1 Amb. Daniel Shapiro’s Remarks at the Institute for National Security
Studies, January 18, 2016
http://israel.usembassy.gov/mobile//amb01182016.html
About Amb. Alan Baker
Amb. Alan Baker is Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the
Jerusalem Center and the head of the Global Law Forum. He participated in
the negotiation and drafting of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, as
well as agreements and peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. He
served as legal adviser and deputy director-general of Israel’s Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and as Israel’s ambassador to Canada.
2a)What to Do About J Street, An Enemy of Israel
One method J Street employs to worm its way into mainstream public opinion is to hold small talks in synagogues and community centers in which it misrepresents its agenda, goals and methods. On January 13 the Daytimers group at Har Shalom in Potomac sponsored a talk by Alan Elsner, special adviser to the president of J Street. The talk was entitled, “Why Everything You’ve Heard about J Street is Dead Wrong.” In point of fact, the title itself and its premise were dead wrong. It should have read, "Why Everything You've Heard About J Street Is Dead Accurate."
J Street describes itself as pro-Israel and repeats that mantra over and over again, allowing the organization to gain entrance into our Jewish institutions. But J Street's actual behavior vis-à-vis Israel belies the claim of being pro-Israel. As Daniel Gordis, Senior Fellow at the Shalem College in Jerusalem, observed: “It’s one thing to put pro-Israel in your tag line, and another to be pro-Israel.”
As the title of the Har Shalom Daytimers talk suggests, J Street attempts to label most of the reports of its anti-Israel activities as"myths." A quick example: Jeremy Ben Ami (J Street's president) speaking at the Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, NY was asked why Jewish students on a J Street tour of Israel were taken to Yasser Arafat's grave in Ramallah. This same question, framed as a"myth" on the J Street web page of "myths and facts," is answered by the following ridiculous assertion; There was time to kill before the next appointment on the tour and the students were learning "about an important piece of the history of the conflict" and the need to "build a more peaceful future." This disingenuous excuse was designed to bamboozle audiences. At the talk for the Westchester Reform Temple, Ben Ami provided yet another distortion for the questioner. He stated that J Street brings students to Yasser Arafat’s grave to teach the students that "a former Palestinian terrorist renounced and abandoned violence in 1993, and became a man of peace..." The very notion of teaching students that Yasser Arafat, one of history's most infamous terrorists, renounced violence and was a man of peace is shockingly dishonest. Arafat has been conclusively shown, even by the admission of key Palestinian officials, to have deliberately planned and started the second Palestinian "intifada." The second Palestinian "intifada" began in September, 2000 and didn't end until a year after the November 2004 death of Arafat. Is there anything that can be believed by an organization that would teach Jewish students such a blatant lie?
It is worth examining a few of the ways that J Street fails to live up to its motto as a pro-Israel organization. This will require selectivity, since in the few years of its existence, J Street has managed to promote a huge number of anti-Israel policies and positions that even its cleverest leaders are unable to spin as pro-Israel.
4. J Street claims that it is opposed to the BDS movement (boycott, divestment and sanctions) against Israel, the standard set by our DC Jewish Federation for the inclusion of organizations and speakers into Jewish communal events. Yet the credibility of J Street and J Street U are severely compromised by their hosting of representatives from pro-BDS organizations to speak at their conferences and campus events, thereby providing a platform for the messengers of BDS to spread their hatred for Israel. A number of speakers at J Street conferences have questioned the right of Israel to exist. While asserting its opposition to BDS repeatedly, J Street has also statedthat it does "not oppose boycott, divestment, or sanctions initiatives that explicitly support a two-state solution, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and focus only on occupied territory beyond the Green line.” So, the truth of the matter is, J Street accepts some BDS initiatives against Israelis and is always open to giving a platform to those who support all BDS initiatives to spread their propaganda and recruit supporters. J Street's position gives only lip service to opposition to BDS. Its conduct demonstrates otherwise. Most telling of all about J Street's equivocal stand on BDS, J Street opposed the Roskam-Vargas Trade Bill (that passed) because it contained a provision discouraging the European Union from engaging in BDS activity.
Just who are the financial supporters of this anti-Israel group?
Coalition of Pro-Israel Advocates (COPIA)
Robert G. Samet, Chairman
Mark H. Lazerson, Vice-Chairman
Carol Greenwald, PhD, Treasurer
Barbara Leber, PhD, Secretary
Jeffrey Ward, General Counsel
http://www.COPMA.net
info@copma.net
4) BREAKING: Benghazi Dem- "I Will Resign"
A stunned Congressman Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on Benghazi, agreed to resign from Congress Wednesday if committee leaks were traced back to his office.
The flustered Cummings then walked back his promise, saying only “I’d be angry.”
“Cummings agreed to resign from Congress if his office was responsible for leaking Benghazi committee testimony, then tried to walk it back,” said Ferguson. “He is already under an Ethics investigation for similar charges. If the leaks are traced back to Cummings, he has no choice but to resign from Congress for obstructing an official investigation.”
During an exclusive noon campaign fundraising event at posh Capitol Hill cocktail lounge Stanton and Greene, Cummings was confronted by Stop Hillary PAC Political Director Donald Ferguson on Democrat efforts to obstruct the Benghazi probe.
Stop Hillary PAC staff attended the event after the Campaign bizarrely sent an invitation to Dan Backer, the Counsel for Stop Hillary that Cummings had personally attacked in an official House press release as part of his campaign of obstruction.
Specifically, Cummings was asked about leaks of testimony offered to the committee with a promise it would remain confidential.
Such leaks discourage witnesses from working with the Committee, whose first two hearings had to be cancelled after Democrats intimidated witnesses, and are part of a broader effort by Democrats, led by Cummings, to obstruct yet another congressional investigation.
Cummings was first asked by Ferguson whether his office played any role in leaking to the media the testimony of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills.
The room fell silent as Cummings glared at Ferguson as the dozen or so lobbyists, paying $1000 a plate, stared into their baked salmon and beef stroganoff.
Mills’ testimony was confidential, but within minutes of leaving the closed door hearing a reporter quoted it to committee chairman Trey Gowdy verbatim.
Cummings first claimed to have no idea what Ferguson meant when he refereed to Mills’ testimony.
It is unlikely Cummings is unaware Mills testified to the committee or that it was leaked.
Cummings has not only previously demanded Mills’ testimony be released to the media, he has blamed Republicans for the leak and was in the room for several hours while she testified.
After Ferguson explained Mills’ testimony and the leaks, Cummings denied any involvement and said "my office would never do that."
That’s not true.
Cummings and his office have a history of obtaining and sharing confidential information.
Cummings and his staffers are currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for requesting confidential IRS information on Tea Party groups, specifically “True The Vote.”
But it was the next question that caught Cummings even more off guard.
Ferguson asked Cummings if the leak were traced back to his office, would he resign from Congress?
“Yes. I would resign,” Cummings flatly stated.
But he then immediately backtracked and said "I would be very angry" if it is found his office was responsible for the leaks.
A visibly shaken, but collected, Cummings continued with the event as Ferguson politely left and offered Cummings his thanks.
Also at the event were lobbyists from Google, the Teamsters, Bank of America, and the National Beer Wholesalers Association. Source: AAN - See more at:
Dear Friends,
The survival of Israel depends on we, as American Jews, recognizing and actively combating the insidious growth of anti-Israel organizations within our own Jewish Community. One such anti-Israel organization has been successful in embedding its supporters and sympathizers within our mainstream Jewish community organizations, and it is influencing their actions. We refer to J Street, and unless we as a Community learn the truth about this organization and resist it, a day is not far off when it will control our institutions and US government policy toward Israel. Some contend it already has close friends on the boards of our mainstream Jewish organizations and finds a close ally in the current US administration.
The survival of Israel depends on we, as American Jews, recognizing and actively combating the insidious growth of anti-Israel organizations within our own Jewish Community. One such anti-Israel organization has been successful in embedding its supporters and sympathizers within our mainstream Jewish community organizations, and it is influencing their actions. We refer to J Street, and unless we as a Community learn the truth about this organization and resist it, a day is not far off when it will control our institutions and US government policy toward Israel. Some contend it already has close friends on the boards of our mainstream Jewish organizations and finds a close ally in the current US administration.
HARVARD LAW PROFESSOR ALAN DERSHOWITZ ON J STREET:
“I think J Street has been the most damaging organization in American history against Israel. It has been the most damaging, more damaging than Students for Justice in Palestine [and] more damaging than the early anti-Zionist Council for Judaism. J Street has done more to turn young people against Israel than any organization in the whole of history. It will go down in history as one of the most virulent, anti-Israel organizations in the history of Zionism and Judaism. It has given cover to anti-Israel attitudes on campus and particularly its approach to Israel’s self defense” Tablet Magazine, August 2015
“I think J Street has been the most damaging organization in American history against Israel. It has been the most damaging, more damaging than Students for Justice in Palestine [and] more damaging than the early anti-Zionist Council for Judaism. J Street has done more to turn young people against Israel than any organization in the whole of history. It will go down in history as one of the most virulent, anti-Israel organizations in the history of Zionism and Judaism. It has given cover to anti-Israel attitudes on campus and particularly its approach to Israel’s self defense” Tablet Magazine, August 2015
One method J Street employs to worm its way into mainstream public opinion is to hold small talks in synagogues and community centers in which it misrepresents its agenda, goals and methods. On January 13 the Daytimers group at Har Shalom in Potomac sponsored a talk by Alan Elsner, special adviser to the president of J Street. The talk was entitled, “Why Everything You’ve Heard about J Street is Dead Wrong.” In point of fact, the title itself and its premise were dead wrong. It should have read, "Why Everything You've Heard About J Street Is Dead Accurate."
J Street describes itself as pro-Israel and repeats that mantra over and over again, allowing the organization to gain entrance into our Jewish institutions. But J Street's actual behavior vis-à-vis Israel belies the claim of being pro-Israel. As Daniel Gordis, Senior Fellow at the Shalem College in Jerusalem, observed: “It’s one thing to put pro-Israel in your tag line, and another to be pro-Israel.”
As the title of the Har Shalom Daytimers talk suggests, J Street attempts to label most of the reports of its anti-Israel activities as"myths." A quick example: Jeremy Ben Ami (J Street's president) speaking at the Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, NY was asked why Jewish students on a J Street tour of Israel were taken to Yasser Arafat's grave in Ramallah. This same question, framed as a"myth" on the J Street web page of "myths and facts," is answered by the following ridiculous assertion; There was time to kill before the next appointment on the tour and the students were learning "about an important piece of the history of the conflict" and the need to "build a more peaceful future." This disingenuous excuse was designed to bamboozle audiences. At the talk for the Westchester Reform Temple, Ben Ami provided yet another distortion for the questioner. He stated that J Street brings students to Yasser Arafat’s grave to teach the students that "a former Palestinian terrorist renounced and abandoned violence in 1993, and became a man of peace..." The very notion of teaching students that Yasser Arafat, one of history's most infamous terrorists, renounced violence and was a man of peace is shockingly dishonest. Arafat has been conclusively shown, even by the admission of key Palestinian officials, to have deliberately planned and started the second Palestinian "intifada." The second Palestinian "intifada" began in September, 2000 and didn't end until a year after the November 2004 death of Arafat. Is there anything that can be believed by an organization that would teach Jewish students such a blatant lie?
It is worth examining a few of the ways that J Street fails to live up to its motto as a pro-Israel organization. This will require selectivity, since in the few years of its existence, J Street has managed to promote a huge number of anti-Israel policies and positions that even its cleverest leaders are unable to spin as pro-Israel.
1. If J Street is, as it says, pro-Israel, why does it never say anything good about Israel? One might expect at least an occasional acknowledgement from an organization that claims to be pro-Israel that Israel has done something good. Don't hold your breath. As Alan Dershowitz, rhetorically addressing J Street, asks, "I went back and I read every single J Street press release from the first day of its existence. I could not find a single one of them that praised Israel. How can you be a "pro-Israel" organization and never express any pro-Israel views? It is absolutely shocking to me. Every press release seems to have a negative about Israel."
Sara Greenberg, writing in the Jerusalem Post comments: “Instead, J Street U partners with some of Israel’s greatest enemies on campus including BDS activists and anti-Israel faculty. ....Sadly, J Street seems to focus more on educating its constituents and students about how to defend the agenda of those who seek Israel’s destruction, instead of being honest about the facts on the ground and equipping young people with the tools necessary to stand up for Israel. .... Rather than call attention to the challenges and regional threats Israel faces today – including terrorism and an impending nuclear-armed Iran – J Street spends its time lobbying Congress (and asking its student chapters to do the same) against resolutions condemning incitement in Palestinian schools, opposing the introduction of a Senate bill to impose new sanctions on Iran, and endorsing the Palestinian and Arab effort to condemn Israel in the United Nations Security Council. .... If an organization is never willing to stand up for Israel, should they still be considered pro-Israel?”
2. If J Street is pro-Israel, as it says, wouldn't we expect it to express concern over Israel's ability to defend itself in a region hostile to its very existence? Instead, J Street continually opposes and criticizes Israel’s right to self-defense and worries far more over the well-being of its enemies. A few examples follow:
Today, as Israelis are being attacked on the streets with knives, car-rammings and bullets by Palestinians, J Street cloaks itself with words of neutrality by speaking of "Israeli-Palestinian violence," rather than acknowledging the truth, which is that the violence originates with the Palestinians and is being perpetrated against Israelis. (Israeli-Palestinian Violence is a Failure of Political Leadership on Both Sides,” J Street blog, 10/2/15)
J Street has a history of at first opposing any sanctions at all and then later supporting the easing of sanctions against Iran, considered by Israel to be the most dangerous power that Israel faces today. Whatever view one may have of the eventual Iran deal that was struck, it was the sanctions against Iran that ultimately forced Iran to the table and induced it to come to the terms that were struck. But J Street resisted sanctions from the start. This resistance took place at a time when Iran was feverishly working to acquire nuclear weapons and was frequently declaring its goal that Israel be wiped from the face of the earth. How can we square J Street's positions on sanctions against Iran with J Street's claim that it is pro-Israel? We cannot. It should therefore not come as a surprise that J Street eventually broke with mainstream Jewish institutions which opposed the Iran Deal and launched instead a large, well-financed campaign with ads and a video in support of it.
In Boston, New York and Seattle in the summer of 2014, during the Israel Gaza conflict, J Street refused to join in Jewish community rallies to support Israel. This refusal took place while rockets rained down on Israel from Gaza, and only the Iron Dome defense system was saving the lives of thousands of Israelis. Why would a self-proclaimed pro-Israel organization refuse to support Israel in its time of need?
With reference to the Iron Dome defense system, the J Street Pac supported political candidates who were actually against funding the Iron Dome Missile Defense system, perfected just in time to save many Israelis. http://freebeacon.
Who can forget J Street's support for the biased and inaccurate Goldstone Report that condemned Israel for defending itself during Operation Cast Lead in 2008 against rockets and mortar shells launched by Hamas. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, then president of the Union for Reform Judaism, who considers himself a dove, found J Street's words "deeply distressing because they [were] morally deficient." He accusingly noted that J Street "could find no moral difference between the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian militants, who have launched more than 5,000 rockets and mortar shells at Israeli civilians in the past three years, and the long-delayed response of Israel, which finally lost patience and responded to the pleas of its battered citizens in the south." http://forward.com/
Rabbi Yoffie was loudly booed at the 2009 J Street Conference when he expressed those views.
3. What does J Street do to defend Israel against the unrelenting stream of anti-Israel propaganda and lies leveled against the Jewish state? The answer -- it not only does nothing at all, it actually helps spread that negative propaganda. As an example, J Street opposed a 2011 congressional letter criticizing Palestinian incitement in the wake of the Itamar massacre of five members of an Israeli family.
J Street U sponsors talks on campuses by the group "Breaking the Silence,” which sends out former IDF soldiers to misrepresent and demonize the Israeli Defense Forces.
In a rather revealing development, J Street U recently elected a Muslim as its President, who, according to ZOA, is a "radical Muslim who spews hatred for Israel and its leaders, supports violence against Israel, and supports anti-Israel boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS)."
Sara Greenberg, writing in the Jerusalem Post comments: “Instead, J Street U partners with some of Israel’s greatest enemies on campus including BDS activists and anti-Israel faculty. ....Sadly, J Street seems to focus more on educating its constituents and students about how to defend the agenda of those who seek Israel’s destruction, instead of being honest about the facts on the ground and equipping young people with the tools necessary to stand up for Israel. .... Rather than call attention to the challenges and regional threats Israel faces today – including terrorism and an impending nuclear-armed Iran – J Street spends its time lobbying Congress (and asking its student chapters to do the same) against resolutions condemning incitement in Palestinian schools, opposing the introduction of a Senate bill to impose new sanctions on Iran, and endorsing the Palestinian and Arab effort to condemn Israel in the United Nations Security Council. .... If an organization is never willing to stand up for Israel, should they still be considered pro-Israel?”
2. If J Street is pro-Israel, as it says, wouldn't we expect it to express concern over Israel's ability to defend itself in a region hostile to its very existence? Instead, J Street continually opposes and criticizes Israel’s right to self-defense and worries far more over the well-being of its enemies. A few examples follow:
Today, as Israelis are being attacked on the streets with knives, car-rammings and bullets by Palestinians, J Street cloaks itself with words of neutrality by speaking of "Israeli-Palestinian violence," rather than acknowledging the truth, which is that the violence originates with the Palestinians and is being perpetrated against Israelis. (Israeli-Palestinian Violence is a Failure of Political Leadership on Both Sides,” J Street blog, 10/2/15)
J Street has a history of at first opposing any sanctions at all and then later supporting the easing of sanctions against Iran, considered by Israel to be the most dangerous power that Israel faces today. Whatever view one may have of the eventual Iran deal that was struck, it was the sanctions against Iran that ultimately forced Iran to the table and induced it to come to the terms that were struck. But J Street resisted sanctions from the start. This resistance took place at a time when Iran was feverishly working to acquire nuclear weapons and was frequently declaring its goal that Israel be wiped from the face of the earth. How can we square J Street's positions on sanctions against Iran with J Street's claim that it is pro-Israel? We cannot. It should therefore not come as a surprise that J Street eventually broke with mainstream Jewish institutions which opposed the Iran Deal and launched instead a large, well-financed campaign with ads and a video in support of it.
In Boston, New York and Seattle in the summer of 2014, during the Israel Gaza conflict, J Street refused to join in Jewish community rallies to support Israel. This refusal took place while rockets rained down on Israel from Gaza, and only the Iron Dome defense system was saving the lives of thousands of Israelis. Why would a self-proclaimed pro-Israel organization refuse to support Israel in its time of need?
With reference to the Iron Dome defense system, the J Street Pac supported political candidates who were actually against funding the Iron Dome Missile Defense system, perfected just in time to save many Israelis. http://freebeacon.
Who can forget J Street's support for the biased and inaccurate Goldstone Report that condemned Israel for defending itself during Operation Cast Lead in 2008 against rockets and mortar shells launched by Hamas. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, then president of the Union for Reform Judaism, who considers himself a dove, found J Street's words "deeply distressing because they [were] morally deficient." He accusingly noted that J Street "could find no moral difference between the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian militants, who have launched more than 5,000 rockets and mortar shells at Israeli civilians in the past three years, and the long-delayed response of Israel, which finally lost patience and responded to the pleas of its battered citizens in the south." http://forward.com/
Rabbi Yoffie was loudly booed at the 2009 J Street Conference when he expressed those views.
3. What does J Street do to defend Israel against the unrelenting stream of anti-Israel propaganda and lies leveled against the Jewish state? The answer -- it not only does nothing at all, it actually helps spread that negative propaganda. As an example, J Street opposed a 2011 congressional letter criticizing Palestinian incitement in the wake of the Itamar massacre of five members of an Israeli family.
J Street U sponsors talks on campuses by the group "Breaking the Silence,” which sends out former IDF soldiers to misrepresent and demonize the Israeli Defense Forces.
In a rather revealing development, J Street U recently elected a Muslim as its President, who, according to ZOA, is a "radical Muslim who spews hatred for Israel and its leaders, supports violence against Israel, and supports anti-Israel boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS)."
4. J Street claims that it is opposed to the BDS movement (boycott, divestment and sanctions) against Israel, the standard set by our DC Jewish Federation for the inclusion of organizations and speakers into Jewish communal events. Yet the credibility of J Street and J Street U are severely compromised by their hosting of representatives from pro-BDS organizations to speak at their conferences and campus events, thereby providing a platform for the messengers of BDS to spread their hatred for Israel. A number of speakers at J Street conferences have questioned the right of Israel to exist. While asserting its opposition to BDS repeatedly, J Street has also statedthat it does "not oppose boycott, divestment, or sanctions initiatives that explicitly support a two-state solution, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and focus only on occupied territory beyond the Green line.” So, the truth of the matter is, J Street accepts some BDS initiatives against Israelis and is always open to giving a platform to those who support all BDS initiatives to spread their propaganda and recruit supporters. J Street's position gives only lip service to opposition to BDS. Its conduct demonstrates otherwise. Most telling of all about J Street's equivocal stand on BDS, J Street opposed the Roskam-Vargas Trade Bill (that passed) because it contained a provision discouraging the European Union from engaging in BDS activity.
Just who are the financial supporters of this anti-Israel group?
"J Street has a history of taking significant sums of money from anti-Israel sources—and lying about it. For example, J Street continuously lied about its funding from George Soros, who has blamed Israel and the Jewish people for the rise of global anti-Semitism. While J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami kept denying it, Eli Lake reported in 2010 that J Street acquired $750,000 from Soros’s family. Ben-Ami was eventually forced to apologize for lying.
Even more troubling was the discovery that Genevieve Lynch, a board member of the NIAC [National Iranian American Council], also funded J Street. NIAC is no ally of the Jewish community, and has recently created a 501(c)4 to counter pro-Israel groups’ attempts to halt the Iran deal." http://www.jns.org/
Even more troubling was the discovery that Genevieve Lynch, a board member of the NIAC [National Iranian American Council], also funded J Street. NIAC is no ally of the Jewish community, and has recently created a 501(c)4 to counter pro-Israel groups’ attempts to halt the Iran deal." http://www.jns.org/
"The J Street political action committee has received tens of thousands of dollars in donations from dozens of Arab and Muslim Americans, as well as from several individuals connected to organizations doing Palestinian and Iranian issues advocacy, according to Federal Election Commission filings. ....Arab and Muslim donors are extremely rare for other organizations that describe themselves as supporters of Israel as J Street does, Jewish leaders at organizations across the political spectrum told the Jerusalem Post."
5. If J Street is pro-Israel, why does it work to undermine the integrity and independence of the democratically elected government of Israel? J Street works tirelessly to pressure our government to force Israel to adopt its policies. In fact, J Street’s 2016 New Year’s resolution is to "Press President Obama to finally break the impasse: it's time to put an American plan -- explicit and public -- on the table.”(email, Ben Ami, “Top ten resolutions for 2016”) The editor of Tower Magazine points out the error of J Streets ways: “The idea that American Jews have the right… to impose their ideas in contradiction to Israeli self-determination. This idea weakens Israel, weakens the American Jewish community, and—most problematically — contains at its heart an implicit repudiation of Zionism itself."
6. If J Street is “pro-Israel,” why are so many of the organizations that it partners with working to the detriment of Israel, including support for BDS? Doesn’t that tell us something about J Street itself? It allies itself on policy issues with radical organizations that defame Israel, such as The New Israel Fund, Breaking the Silence, Peace Now, Jewish Voice for Peace and B’Tselem. It is little wonder that in 2014 the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations appropriately voted to reject J Street's application for membership. Undaunted, J Street has found its own ways to circumvent the establishment. J Street is working hard to win over the young and is already accepted on about 50 plus campuses, many as part of Hillel. It is also involving itself in educational programs at Jewish day schools. The list of local synagogues and temples that have hosted talks by J Street includes Har Shalom (Men’s Club and Daytimers), Temple Micah, Temple Sinai, Adat Shalom, Beth El Hebrew, Temple Rodef Shalom, Tifereth Israel, Temple Shalom and B'nai Tzedek.
By falsely posing as a pro-Israel organization, J Street is infiltrating our Jewish institutions, especially our synagogues and day schools, who are responsible for educating our young, the future Zionists of America.
6. If J Street is “pro-Israel,” why are so many of the organizations that it partners with working to the detriment of Israel, including support for BDS? Doesn’t that tell us something about J Street itself? It allies itself on policy issues with radical organizations that defame Israel, such as The New Israel Fund, Breaking the Silence, Peace Now, Jewish Voice for Peace and B’Tselem. It is little wonder that in 2014 the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations appropriately voted to reject J Street's application for membership. Undaunted, J Street has found its own ways to circumvent the establishment. J Street is working hard to win over the young and is already accepted on about 50 plus campuses, many as part of Hillel. It is also involving itself in educational programs at Jewish day schools. The list of local synagogues and temples that have hosted talks by J Street includes Har Shalom (Men’s Club and Daytimers), Temple Micah, Temple Sinai, Adat Shalom, Beth El Hebrew, Temple Rodef Shalom, Tifereth Israel, Temple Shalom and B'nai Tzedek.
By falsely posing as a pro-Israel organization, J Street is infiltrating our Jewish institutions, especially our synagogues and day schools, who are responsible for educating our young, the future Zionists of America.
Coalition of Pro-Israel Advocates (COPIA)
Robert G. Samet, Chairman
Mark H. Lazerson, Vice-Chairman
Carol Greenwald, PhD, Treasurer
Barbara Leber, PhD, Secretary
Jeffrey Ward, General Counsel
http://www.COPMA.net
info@copma.net
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3)The shoe is on the other foot and the Mexicans from the State of Sonora, Mexico do not like it. Can you believe the nerve of these people? It's almost funny. The State of Sonora is angry at the influx of Mexicans into Mexico!
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The state legislators from the Mexican State of Sonora traveled to Tucson to complain about Arizona's new employer crackdown on illegals from Mexico. It seems that many Mexican illegals are returning to their hometowns and the officials in the Sonora state government are ticked off. A delegation of nine state legislators from Sonora was in Tucson on Tuesday to state that Arizona's new 'Employer Sanctions Law' will have a devastating effect on the Mexican state. At a news conference, the legislators said that Sonora (Arizona's southern neighbor) made up of mostly of small towns - cannot handle the demand for housing, jobs and schools that it will face as Mexican workers return to their hometowns from the USA without jobs or money.
The Arizona law, which took effect Jan. 1, punishes Arizona employers who knowingly hire individuals without valid legal documents to work in the United States . Penalties include suspension of, or loss of, their business license. The Mexican legislators are angry because their own citizens are returning to their hometowns, placing a burden on THEIR state government instead of ours.
'How can Arizona pass a law like this?' asked Mexican Rep Leticia Amparano-Gamez, who represents Nogales . 'There is not one person living in Sonora who does not have a friend or relative working in Arizona ,' she said, speaking in Spanish. 'Mexico is not prepared for this, for the tremendous problems it will face as more and more Mexicans working in Arizona and who were sending money to their families return to their hometowns in Sonora without jobs,' she said 'We are one family, socially and economically,' she said of the people of Sonora and Arizona.
Wrong! The United States is a sovereign nation, not a subsidiary of Mexico, and its taxpayers are not responsible for the welfare of Mexico's citizens. It's time for the Mexican government, and its citizens, to stop feeding parasitically off the United States and to start taking care of its/their own needs.
Too bad that other states within the USA don't pass a law just like that passed by Arizona. Maybe that's the answer, since our own Congress will do nothing!
*New Immigration Laws* (Mexico's)
1. There will be no special bilingual programs in the schools.
2. All ballots will be in this nation's language.
3. All government business will be conducted in our language.
4. Non-residents will NOT have the right to vote no matter how long they are here.
5. Non-citizens will NEVER be able to hold political office.
6. Foreigners will not be a burden to the taxpayers. No welfare, no food stamps, no health care, or any other government assistance programs. Any who are a burden will be deported.
7. Foreigners can invest in this country, but it must be an amount at least equal to 40,000 times the daily minimum wage.
8. If foreigners come here and buy land, their options will be restricted. Certain parcels including waterfront property are reserved for citizens naturally born into this country.
9. Foreigners may have NO protests; NO demonstrations, NO waving of a foreign flag, no political organizing, NO bad-mouthing our president or his policies. These will lead to deportation.
10. If you do come to this country illegally, you will be actively hunted and, when caught, sent to jail until your deportation can be arranged. All assets will be taken from you.
Too strict? The above laws are the current immigration laws of MEXICO ! If it's good for Americans to obey Mexican laws, then it's good vice versa!!!
4) BREAKING: Benghazi Dem- "I Will Resign"
A stunned Congressman Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on Benghazi, agreed to resign from Congress Wednesday if committee leaks were traced back to his office.
The flustered Cummings then walked back his promise, saying only “I’d be angry.”
“Cummings agreed to resign from Congress if his office was responsible for leaking Benghazi committee testimony, then tried to walk it back,” said Ferguson. “He is already under an Ethics investigation for similar charges. If the leaks are traced back to Cummings, he has no choice but to resign from Congress for obstructing an official investigation.”
During an exclusive noon campaign fundraising event at posh Capitol Hill cocktail lounge Stanton and Greene, Cummings was confronted by Stop Hillary PAC Political Director Donald Ferguson on Democrat efforts to obstruct the Benghazi probe.
Stop Hillary PAC staff attended the event after the Campaign bizarrely sent an invitation to Dan Backer, the Counsel for Stop Hillary that Cummings had personally attacked in an official House press release as part of his campaign of obstruction.
Specifically, Cummings was asked about leaks of testimony offered to the committee with a promise it would remain confidential.
Such leaks discourage witnesses from working with the Committee, whose first two hearings had to be cancelled after Democrats intimidated witnesses, and are part of a broader effort by Democrats, led by Cummings, to obstruct yet another congressional investigation.
Cummings was first asked by Ferguson whether his office played any role in leaking to the media the testimony of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills.
The room fell silent as Cummings glared at Ferguson as the dozen or so lobbyists, paying $1000 a plate, stared into their baked salmon and beef stroganoff.
Mills’ testimony was confidential, but within minutes of leaving the closed door hearing a reporter quoted it to committee chairman Trey Gowdy verbatim.
Cummings first claimed to have no idea what Ferguson meant when he refereed to Mills’ testimony.
It is unlikely Cummings is unaware Mills testified to the committee or that it was leaked.
Cummings has not only previously demanded Mills’ testimony be released to the media, he has blamed Republicans for the leak and was in the room for several hours while she testified.
After Ferguson explained Mills’ testimony and the leaks, Cummings denied any involvement and said "my office would never do that."
That’s not true.
Cummings and his office have a history of obtaining and sharing confidential information.
Cummings and his staffers are currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for requesting confidential IRS information on Tea Party groups, specifically “True The Vote.”
But it was the next question that caught Cummings even more off guard.
Ferguson asked Cummings if the leak were traced back to his office, would he resign from Congress?
“Yes. I would resign,” Cummings flatly stated.
But he then immediately backtracked and said "I would be very angry" if it is found his office was responsible for the leaks.
A visibly shaken, but collected, Cummings continued with the event as Ferguson politely left and offered Cummings his thanks.
Also at the event were lobbyists from Google, the Teamsters, Bank of America, and the National Beer Wholesalers Association. Source: AAN - See more at:
http://americanactionnews.com/articles/breaking-benghazi-dem#sthash.JeQGB2qL.dpuf
6)
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5)
Hugh Fitzgerald: Ten Things to Think When Thinking of Muslim 'Moderates'
Note from Robert Spencer: The “moderate” Muslim never dies, and I thought that this 2004 Hugh Fitzgerald discussion of the “moderate Muslim” bears re-posting now. There are some references clearly reflecting the year of composition, but not a word has been changed, for it has stood, we think, the test of time — certainly compared to any comment by Tom Friedman or Nicholas Kristof, all of whose jejune columns are undone by reality about a week after they are published.
1. Not only Muslims, but “islamochristians” objectively promote and push the propagandistic line that disguises the Jihad (evidence of which can be found worldwide), and mislead as to both what prompts that Jihad (not “poverty” or “foreign policy” but the precepts of the belief-system of Islam) and what will sate it (not Kashmir, not Chechnya, not the absurd “two-state solution,” not continued appeasement in France and Holland — there is nothing that will sate or satisfy it, as long as part of the globe is as yet resistent to the rule of Islam). “Christians” such as Fawaz Gerges or Rami Khoury, or someone who was born a Christian, such as Edward Said, are Arabs whose views are colored by that self-perception. Their loyalty to the community and history of Arabs causes them to be as loyal to the Islamic view of things as if they had been born Muslim. They stoutly defend Islam against all of Western scholarship (in Orientalism), or divert attention away from Islam and constantly assert, in defiance of all the evidence, from Bali to Beslan to Madrid, that the “problem of Israel/Palestine” — the latest, and most sinister formulation of the Jihad against Israel — is the fons et origo of Muslim hostility and murderous aggression throughout the world. Save for the Copts and Maronites, who regard themselves not as Arabs but as “users” of the “Arabic language” (and reject the idea that such “users” therefore become “Arabs”), many Arab Christians have crazily embraced the Islamic agenda; the agenda, that is, of those who have made the lives of Christians in the Middle East so uncertain, difficult, and at times, imperilled. The attempt to be “plus islamiste que les islamistes” — the approach of Rami Khoury and Hanan Ashrawi — simply will not do, for it has not worked. It is Habib Malik and other Maronites in Lebanon who have analysed the problem of Islam in a clear-eyed fashion. Indeed, the best book on the legal status of non-Muslims under Islam is that of the Lebanese (Maronite) scholar Antoine Fattal.
Any “islamochristian” Arab who promotes the Islamic agenda, by participating in a campaign that can only mislead Infidels and put off their understanding of Jihad and its various instruments, is objectively as much part of the problem as the Muslim who knowingly practices taqiyya in order to turn aside the suspicions of non-Muslims. Whoever acts so as to keep the unwary Infidel unwary is helping the enemy.
Think, for a minute, of Oskar Schindler. A member of the Nazi Party, but hardly someone who followed the Nazi line. But what if Schindler had at some point met with Westerners — and had continued, himself, to deny that the Nazis were engaged in genocide, even if he himself deplored it and would later act against it? Would we think of him as a “moderate”? As someone who had helped the anti-Nazi coalition to understand what it was up against?
Or for another example, think of Ilya Ehrenburg, who in 1951 or so was sent abroad by Stalin to lie about the condition of Yiddish-speaking intellectuals whom Stalin had recently massacred. Ehrenburg went to France, went to Italy. He did as he was told. “Peretz? Markish? Oh, yes, saw Peretz at his dacha last month with his grandson. Such a jovial fellow. Markish — he was great last year in Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District — you should see how it comes across in zhargon, Yiddish…” And so it went. Eherenburg lied, and lied. He was not a Stalinist. He hated Stalin. He of course hated the destruction of Peretz, Markish, and many others who had been killed many months before — as Ehrenburg knew perfectly well. When he went abroad and lied to the editors of Nouvelle Revue Francaise, what was he? Objectively, he was promoting the interests of Joseph Stalin, and the Red Army, and the Politburo. We need not inquire into motives. We need only see what the results of such lying were. And the same is true of those Christian Arabs who lie on behalf of Islam — some out of fear, some out of an ethnocentric identification so strong that they end up defending Islam, the religion of those who persecuted the Christian Arabs of the Middle East, and some out of venality (if Western diplomats and journalists can be on the Arab take, why not Arabs themselves?), some out of careerism. If you want to rise in the academic ranks, and your field is the Middle East, unless you are a real scholar — Cook or Crone or Lewis — better to parrot the party line, which costs you nothing and gains you friends in tenure-awarding, grant-giving, reference-writing circles. There is at least one example, too, among those mentioned, in a situation where an Arabic-speaking Christian, attempting to find refuge from Muslim persecution, needed the testimony of an “expert” — which “expert,” instead of offering a pro-bono samaritan act, demanded so much money to be involved (in a fantastic display of greed) that the very idea of solidarity among Arab Christians was called by this act permanently into question.
2. The word “moderate” cannot be reasonably applied to any Muslim who continues to deny the contents — the real contents, not the sanitized or gussied-up contents — of Qur’an, hadith, and sira.Whether that denial is based on ignorance, or based on embarrassment, or based on filial piety (and an unwillingness to wash dirty ideological laundry before the Infidels) is irrelevant. Any Muslim who, while seeming to deplore every aspect of Muslim aggression, based on clear textual sources in Qur’an and hadith, or on the example of Muhammad as depicted in the accepted sira — Muhammad that “model” of behavior — is again, objectively, acting in a way that simply misleads the Infidels. And any Muslim who helps to mislead Infidels about the true nature of Islam cannot be called a “moderate.” That epithet is simply handed out a bit too quickly for sensible tastes.
3. What of a Muslim who says — there are terrible things in the sira and hadith, and we must find a way out, so that this belief-system can focus on the rituals of individual worship, and offer some sustenance as a simple faith for simple people? This would require admitting that a great many of Muhammad’s reported acts must either be denied, or given some kind of figurative interpretation, or otherwise removed as part of his “model” life. As for the hadith, somehow one would have to say that Bukhari, and Muslim, and the other respected muhaddithin had not examined those isnad-chains with quite the right meticulousness, and that many of the hadith regarded as “authentic” must be reduced to the status of “inauthentic.” And, following Goldziher, doubt would have to be cast on all of the hadith, as imaginative elaborations from the Qur’an, without any necessarily independent existence.
4. This leaves the Qur’an. Any “moderate” who wishes to prevent inquiry into the origins of the Qur’an — whether it may be the product of a Christian sect, or a Jewish sect, or of pagan Arabs who decided to construct a book, made up partly of Christian and Jewish material mixed with bits and pieces of pagan Arab lore from the time of the Jahiliya — or to prevent philological study (of, for example, Aramaic and other loan-words) — anyone who impedes the enterprise of subjecting the Qur’an to the kind of historical inquiry that the Christian and Jewish Bibles have undergone in the past 200 years of inquiry, is not a “moderate” but a fervent Defender of the Faith. One unwilling to encourage such study — which can only lead to a move away from literalness for at least some of the Believers — again is not “moderate.”
5. The conclusion one must reach is that there are, in truth, very few moderates. For if one sees the full meaning of Qur’an, hadith, and sira, and sees how they have affected the behavior of Muslims both over 1400 years of conquest and subjugation of non-Muslims, and in stunting the development — political, economic, moral, and intellectual — of Muslims everywhere, it is impossible not to conclude that this imposing edifice is not in any sense moderate or susceptible to moderation.
What must an intelligent Muslim, living through the hell of the Islamic Republic of Iran, start to think of Islam? Or that Kuwaiti billionaire, with houses in St. James Place and Avenue Foch and Vevey, as well as the family/company headquarters in Kuwait City, who sends his children to the American School in Kuwait, and boasts that they know English better than they know Arabic, helps host Fouad Ajami when he visits Kuwait, is truly heartsick to see Kuwait’s increasing islamization? Would he allow himself to say what he knows in public, or in front of half-brothers, or to friends — knowing that at any moment, they may be scandalized by his free-thinking views, and that he may run the risk of losing his place in the family’s pecking order and, what’s more, in the family business?
The mere fact that Muslim numbers may grow in the Western world represents a permanent threat to Infidels. This is true even if some, or many, of those Muslims are “moderates” — i.e. do not believe that Islam has some kind of divine right, and need, to expand until it covers the globe and swallows up dar al-harb. For if they are still to be counted in the Army of Islam, not as Deserters (Apostates) from that Army, their very existence in the Bilad al-kufr helps to swell Muslim ranks, and therefore perceived Muslim power. And even the “moderate” father may sire immoderate children or grandchildren — that was the theme of the Hanif Kureishi film, quasi-comic but politically acute, “My Son the Fanatic.” Whether through Da’wa or large families, any growth in the Muslim population will inhibit free expression (see the fates of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, and the threats made to Geert Wilders, Carl Hagen, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and many others), for politicians eager to court the Muslim vote will pooh-pooh Muslim outrages and strive to have the state yield to Muslim demands — for the sake of short-term individual gain. And Muslim numbers, even with “moderates,” increases the number of Muslim missionaries — for every Muslim is a missionary — whether conducting “Sharing Ramadan” Outreach in the schools (where a soft-voiced Pakistani woman is usually the soothing propagandist of choice), or Da’wa in a prison. The more Muslims there are, the more there will be — and no one knows which “moderate” will end up distinctly non-moderate in his views, and then in his acts.
And this brings up the most important problem: the impermanence of “moderate” attitudes. What makes anyone think that someone who this week or month has definitely turned his back on Jihad, who will have nothing to do with those he calls the “fanatics,” if he does not make a clean break with Islam, does not become a “renegade” or apostate, will at some point “revert” not to Islam, which he never left, but to a more devout form, in which he now subscribes to all of its tenets, and not merely to a few having to do with rites of individual worship?
6. The examples to the contrary are both those of individuals, and of whole societies. As for individual Muslims, some started out as mild-mannered and largely indifferent to Islam, and then underwent some kind of crisis and reverted to a much more fanatical brand of Islam. That was the case with urban planner Mohammad Atta, following his disorienting encounter with modern Western ways in Hamburg, Germany — Reeperbahn and all. That was also the case with “Mike” Hawash, the Internet engineer earning $360,000 a year, who seemed completely integrated (American wife, Little League for the children, friends among fellow executives at Intel who would swear up and down that he was innocent) — until one fine day, after the World Trade Center attacks, he made out his will, signed the house over to his wife, and set off to fight alongside the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan (he got as far as China) against his fellow Americans. In other words, if fanatical Muslims exist, it does not mean that they all start out as fanatics. Islam is the necessary starting place, and what sets off a “moderate” may have little to do with anything the Infidels do, any question of foreign policy — it may simply be a crisis in an individual Muslim’s life, to which he seeks an answer, not surprisingly, in … more Islam.
7. Much the same lesson can be drawn from the experience of whole societies. In passing, one can note that the position of Infidels under the Pahlavi regime was better than it had been for centuries — and under the regime that followed, that of the Islamic Republic of Iran, that position of Infidels became worse than it had been for centuries. “Secularism” in Islamic countries is never permanent; the weight and the threat of Islam is ever-present.
The best example of this is Turkey since 1924, when Ataturk began his reforms. He tried in every way he could — through the Hat Act (banishing the salat-friendly fez); commissioning a Turkish translation of the Qur’an and an accompanying tafsir (commentary) in Turkish; ending the use of Arabic script for Turkish; establishing government control of the mosques (even attacking recalcitrant imams and destroying their mosques); giving women the right to vote; establishing a system that discouraged the wearing of the hijab; encouraging Western dress; and discouraging, in the army, preferment of any soldier who showed too great an interest in religion. This attempt to constrain Islam was successful, and was reinforced by the national cult of Ataturk.
But the past few decades have shown that Islam does not die; it keeps coming back. In Turkey, it never went away, despite the creation of a secular stratum of society that amounts perhaps to 25% of the population, with another 25% wavering, and 50% still definitely traditional Muslims. Meanwhile, Turks in Germany become not less, but more fervent in their faith. And Turks in Turkey, of the kind who follow Erdogan, show that they may at any moment emerge and take power — and slowly (very slowly, as long as that EU application has not been acted on, one way or another) they can undo Ataturk. He was temporary; Islam is forever.
8. That is why even the designation of some Muslims as “moderates” in the end means almost nothing. They swell Muslim numbers and the perceived Muslim power; “moderates” may help to mislead, to be in fact even more effective practitioners of taqiyya/kitman, for their motive may simply be loyalty to ancestors or embarrassment, not a malign desire to fool Infidels in order to disarm and then ultimately to destroy them.
9. For this reason, one has to keep one’s eye always on the objective situation. What will make Infidels safer from a belief-system that is inimical to art, science, and all free inquiry, that stunts the mental growth, and that is based on a cruel Manichaean division of the world between Infidel and Believer? And the answer is: limiting the power — military, political, diplomatic, economic power — of all Muslim polities, and Muslim peoples, and diminishing, as much as possible, the Muslim presence, however amiable and plausible and seemingly untroubling a part of that presence may appear to be, in all the Lands of the Infidels. This is done not out of any spirit of enmity, but simply as an act of minimal self-protection — and out of loyalty and gratitude to those who produced the civilization which, however it has been recently debased by its own inheritors, would disappear altogether were Muslims to succeed in islamizing Europe — and then, possibly, other parts of the world as well.
10. “There are Muslim moderates. Islam itself is not moderate” is Ibn Warraq’s lapidary formulation. To this one must add: we Infidels have no sure way to distinguish the real from the feigning “moderate” Muslim. We cannot spend our time trying to perfect methods to make such distinctions. Furthermore, in the end such distinctions may be meaningless if even the “real” moderates hide from us what Islam is all about, not out of any deeply-felt sinister motive, but out of a humanly-understandable ignorance (especially among some second or third-generation Muslims in the West), or embarrassment, or filial piety. And finally, yesterday’s “moderate” can overnight be transformed into today’s fanatic — or tomorrow’s.
Shall we entrust our own safety to the dreamy consolations of the phrase “moderate Muslim” and the shape shifting concept behind it that can be transformed into something else in a minute?
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In an office:
TOILET OUT OF ORDER......... PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW
In a Laundromat:
AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES: PLEASE REMOVE ALL
YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT
In a London department store:
BARGAIN BASEMENT UPSTAIRS
In an office:
WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER
YESTERDAY PLEASE BRING IT BACK OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN
In an office:
AFTER TEA BREAK, STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE TEAPOT
AND STAND UPSIDE DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD
Outside a second-hand shop:
EXCHANGE ANYTHING - BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES, ETC. WHYNOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?
Notice in health food shop window:
CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS
Spotted in a safari park:
ELEPHANTS PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR
Notice in a farmer's field:
THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE, BUT THE BULL CHARGES.
On a repair shop door:
WE CAN REPAIR ANYTHING. (PLEASE KNOCK HARD ON THE DOOR - THE BELL DOESN'T WORK).
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