Melanie Phillips writes a rational open letter to Muslims. The question is are there any rational Muslims and if there are, are they capable of listening? (See 1 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Linda Sarsour is the new darling of the radical Democrat Party's far left. She is a menace to social order but she knows how to use our freedoms to inflame. (See 2 below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Due to heightened threats from Iran Israel's IAF decided to withdraw planes from their annual drill. (See 3 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
George Carlin was vulgar but rational and he drove the PC crowd nuts with his humor and logic. He was one of my favorite comedians.
George Carlin shares his views on the environment and saving the planet.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This from the daughter of one of our family's close friends. She is also a fellow memo reader. My father and her father were Sonneborn Institute members. My father acquired war surplus materiel from southern scrap dealers, had it hauled by train to her father in Miami who then, with the assistance of the Chairman of United Fruit, had the contraband trans-hipped by freighter to Israel.
Her father developed one of Miami Beaches' beautiful Islands and is now is the home of one of the premier shopping areas. He also founded one of the finest law firms in Miami Beach which still is in practice and a prominent causeway if named after him.
"Dick, I have the Sonneborn Picture with your Dad and my Dad as the first 2 on the left side-that's what happens when your surname begins with "B". What a legacy we and our descendants have. A--"
1)
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MUSLIM WORLD
By Melanie Phillips
The State of Israel is 70 years old today and I am writing from its capital city, Jerusalem.
I realize that for most of you, the words I have just written will cause your gorge to rise. In Israel, they are a source of jubilation.
Israel’s rebirth as the Jewish national homeland out of the ashes of the Holocaust was in itself an astonishing achievement, unique in the annals of the world.
For it to have survived the unparalleled attempts to destroy it ever since is regarded by many as nothing short of miraculous.
Yesterday was Israel’s annual remembrance day. When the sirens sounded, the country paused and bowed its head. It’s the day when Israel mourns the price in blood it has had to pay for existing at all: 23,646 fallen Israeli soldiers and 3,134 Israeli civilians murdered through terrorism.
More than 26,000 dead—with most of the military casualties consisting of Israel’s precious young who must be conscripted to defend their country—purely because there are people determined to prevent the Jews from living in their own ancestral homeland.
But you know all about that because you are the people killing them.
You are the people who have been trying to destroy the Jewish homeland for the better part of a century. Look how hard you’ve tried. You’ve used war. You’ve used terrorism. You’ve used the Palestinian Arabs as pawns. You’ve used the diplomatic game. You’ve used economic boycotts.
Despite all this, you have been forced to watch as Israel has not only survived but become the strongest state in the region, stronger even than many countries in the developed world.
While your economies are one giant basket-case disguised only by the now fast-disappearing oil weapon, Israel has become the “start-up nation” with its economy booming.
While your birth rate is falling off the edge of a cliff, Israel’s average of three births per woman is nearly double the fertility rate for other industrialized countries in the OECD.
Your one undoubted success has been to get the Europeans on your side in your campaign of demonization and delegitimization of Israel. Well, good luck with that one.
European culture is itself in danger of going down the tubes as the result of uncontrolled migration. The Europeans may think they support you against Israel, but the harsh reality—which is about to get a whole lot harsher for them—is that they will increasingly need Israel’s support against you.
We understand why you hate Israel. Paranoid hatred of the Jews is embedded in your religious texts. Moreover, since you believe that any land ever occupied by Muslims becomes Muslim land in perpetuity—and since the very idea of the Jews being your equals in ruling their own land is anathema to you—your culture of honor and shame means that you cannot accept a Jewish state in a region you claim as your own.
So we know you will never accept that Israel is entitled to exist. Nevertheless, you are actually fighting a much bigger enemy than the Jews—an enemy to which you are losing hands down. That enemy is modernity.
For all the terrible violence and mayhem you have unleashed in the cause of Islamic holy war, your purpose is ultimately defensive. You realize that, in its freedom for the individual and particularly for women, modernity poses a mortal threat to Islam.
Unlike the ignorant west, you know that Islam does not mean peace. It means submission. Modernity means submission can no longer be enforced. Which is why, in its seventh-century form at least, Islam is on the way out.
Which is why you believe you have to stop modernity. Which is why you are at war with the west. And which is also why you see the Jews as your enemy of enemies because you believe they are behind absolutely everything to do with modernity. Destroy the Jews, you imagine, and you will defeat modernity.
Too late: the genie is out of the bottle. In Iran, women are throwing off their hijabs; as a result, the clerical regime terrorizing the Iranian people is trembling. The Iranian people are refusing to submit; and if enough of them rise up, the Islamist regime will be toppled and modernity will have won.
In Saudi Arabia, the Crown Prince has realized that unless the country modernizes, it will die. Accordingly, some repressive social rules have been relaxed with more reforms promised.
Yes, these are only small steps. But the Crown Prince, who also needs western backing to fight the Iranian regime, has come to understand that rather than fighting modernity he needs to make some kind of accommodation with it. And he seems to have concluded something similar about Israel.
And look at the Palestinian Arabs. In Gaza, Hamas is having to force them through threats and violence to rush the border fence with Israel. More and more Israeli Arabs want to be known just as Israelis. Arabs living in the disputed territories by and large don’t want to live in a despotic and corrupt Palestine state. They want Israeli passports and to live in Israel, under the rule of law and guarantees of human rights.
An increasing number of the Arab young, who are on Twitter and Facebook and all the rest of it, don’t want to fight the unending battles of the seventh century.
Of course, none of this means the Palestinian Arabs are about to abandon their war to destroy Israel; opinion polls suggest widespread continuing rejectionism. But the unstoppable force of modernity is meeting the immoveable object of Islam, and modernity will win.
Dear Muslim world, we Jews are fated always to be yoked to you. How could it be otherwise? We are half-brothers and sisters, sharing the same father although we have different mothers (and we didn’t treat yours very well). Like it or not, we are part of the same extended family.
We know that families, especially stepfamilies, can be arenas of resentment and hatred. Despite the murderous hatred you have shown us over the last 70 years and previously, we Jews don’t hate you. Nor do we need you to love us. We just want you to get over yourselves and collectively grow up.
If you finally were to decide to end your war against us in Israel, finally decide that you love your children more than you hate us, finally decide that instead of trying to destroy Israel you want it to help you accommodate to modernity, you will find our hands extended in friendship. But if you try to remove us from the earth, we will destroy you.
Dear Muslim world, wake up and smell the coffee. The Jewish people has defied all the odds over and over again and will continue to do so. You may break our hearts by killing our loved ones but you won’t break us. Progress and modernity will destroy you instead.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2)
WOMEN’S MARCH LEADERS SLAM ADL, CALL GROUP ‘ISLAMOPHOBIC,’ ANTI-MINORITY
Linda Sarsour had a lot to say about the Anti-Defamation League.
In light of the ADL’s participation, Women’s March co-president Tamika Mallory called for a boycott of the coffeehouse giant via social media, writing: “So you are aware, Starbucks was on a decent track until they enlisted the Anti-Defamation League to build their anti-bias training.”
Be clear about what’s happening here.”
Challenged by Twitter users who defended the civil rights group, Mallory doubled down and partly faulted an ADL-sponsored program that sends police departments to train with Israeli security agencies.
“We are talking about anti-bias training, which has mainly been happening to [sic] black people. The ADL sends US police to Israel to learn their military practices. This is deeply troubling. Let’s not even talk about their attacks against @ blacklivesmatter,” Mallory stated.
Meanwhile, Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour took to Facebook to denounce the ADL, echoing Mallory’s call for a ban against Starbucks.
“Starbucks almost had me on their anti-bias training for all employees UNTIL I heard ADL was enlisted as one of the orgs to build their anti-bias curriculum.
[It is] an anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian organization that peddles islamophobia and attacks America’s prominent Muslim orgs and activists,” Sarsour wrote in her post.
The Brooklyn-born Palestinian rights activists added: “Other awesome groups that could do anti-bias trainings or give recommendations... Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Bend the Arc... trainers that conducted the Confronting White Womanhood panel at Women’s March Convention, and so many, many more.”
Last month, the ADL criticized the Women’s March leaders after they failed to condemn an anti-Jewish speech delivered by notorious hate-preacher Louis Farrakhan in Chicago.
“In the audience at last weekend’s conference was Tamika Mallory, one of the leaders of the Women’s March, who got a special shout-out from Farrakhan and who regularly posts laudatory pictures of him on her Instagram account as does Carmen Perez, another leader of the March,” the ADL said in a statement on March 3.
“Linda Sarsour, another March organizer, spoke and participated in a Nation of Islam event in 2015. Her most notable response to his incendiary remarks this year was a glowing post on Perez’s Facebook page to praise Farrakhan’s youthful demeanor,” the ADL added.
Starbucks decided to include the ADL, along with a number of civil rights groups, for a “racial bias training” seminar scheduled on May 29.
The training sessions follow a national backlash after two black men were arrested inside a Starbucks coffee store in Philadelphia for trespassing.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3) ISRAEL PULLS FIGHTER JETS FROM DRILL IN ALASKA AMID TENSIONS WITH IRAN
IDF confirms that the Air Force "adjusted" its participation "in light of situational assessment."
The Israeli Air Force has decided to scale back its participation in the Red Flag exercise in Alaska amid increasing tensions on Israel’s northern border.
“In light of the situational assessment by the Air Force it was decided to adjust the planes’ participation in the exercise,” read a statement by the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, stressing that nonetheless, “Israel’s first participation in the Red Flag exercise in Alaska will take place as planned.”
According to a statement by Air Force public affairs officer Kitsana Dounglomchan, Israel’s Air Force decided not to send F-15 fighter jets to the two-week-long drill, which will run between April 26 - May 11, out of Eielson Air Force base in Fairbanks and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage.
"Despite this change, we are looking forward to hosting the Israeli contingent that will be partaking in Red Flag-Alaska 18-1," Dounglomchan was quoted by local media as saying.
The Red Flag exercises take place several times a year bringing together US and international forces for drills on realistic simulated combat situations. A statement released by Pacific Air Forces, the Alaskan Command’s higher headquarters which directs the exercise, said that over 60 aircraft “from more than a dozen units” will be taking part in the drill.
Israel regularly participates in US Air Force’s main Red Flag exercises at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and the drill in Alaska is meant to offer pilots the opportunity to fly in combat scenarios which involve winter conditions such as snow and ice that Israeli pilots rarely get to drill on in the Middle East.
The “exercise is designed to provide realistic training in a simulated combat environment,” read a statement by the US Pacific Air Forces Public Affairs, adding that “Red Flag-Alaska exercises provide unique opportunities to integrate various forces in a realistic threat environment.”
Tensions on Israel’s northern border have been rising in recent months as Israel fears that Iran is entrenching itself deeper into war-torn Syria with its presence on Israel’s borders growing in strength.
With long-range strike and reconnaissance capabilities, Israel’s F-15s are the backbone of the Israel Air Force, carrying out operations over Syria and the Gaza Strip.
In mid-April, the Russian military announced that Israel carried out an airstrike against Syria’s T4 airbase with two F-15s with guided missiles fired from Lebanese airspace. The airstrike killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps soldiers, including Col. Mehdi Dehghan who led the drone unit operating out of the base.
Following the strikes, Israel placed its troops on alert, preparing for a direct attack from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps - and not by proxies as done before - under the command of Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani in the form of precision-guided missiles or armed drones from a base in Syria.
Hossein Salami, the second-in-command of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Friday that Israel should "not trust" its air bases, as they are "within range of our fire."
“The finger is on the trigger and the missiles are ready at any given moment that the enemy conducts something against us, and we will launch them,” Salami stated.
On Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman warned that while Israel was not planning for war, "those who threaten (Israel) need to understand there is a price to be paid.”
"Iran is setting up weapons systems in Syria that are positioned only against us. We will not allow for Syria to become a military base [for the Iranians]," he said. "We have established here a state and the IDF specifically to prevent these threats, and those who threaten need to understand there is a price to be paid, and they will pay a full price."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No comments:
Post a Comment