RUTHFULLY YOURS

Jobless numbers on the rise in swing states
Unemployment rates rose in July from…
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Dem-turned-Republican Davis rallies for Ryan
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Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz23zynKDK6
Morsi seen restoring Iran ties with trip to Tehran
Associated Press
Saturday, August 18, 2012
News
Morsi seen restoring Iran ties with trip to Tehran
Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi will attend a summit in Iran later this month, a presidential official said on Saturday, the first such trip for an Egyptian leader since relations with Tehran deteriorated decades ago. Read more…

Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz23zz2G8Ox

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

The slogan under which Obama hopes to win the next four years is “Forward”. “Forward” is the quintessential progressive slogan, progressives being people who are so forward-thinking that they want to remake the 21st Century in line with their 19th Century ideas. Progressivism, like so many other flavors of futurism, is so new it’s old. It’s the world of tomorrow as imagined by men with top hats and full beards whose Twitter-wielding descendants are still shouting, “March Forward!” at us 150 years later.
The last century has represented a great love affair with the future. A hundred years of spring cleaning accompanied by the resounding cry, “Out with the old, in with the new.” Everyone was a progressive now. The one thing that all the participants in the Second World War had in common was that they were all dreaming of the future. A Thousand Year Reich, a United Nations or Communism: millions died for the sake of a wonderful future.

The Germans died for a Nazi superstate built out of Albert Speer’s monstrous concrete towers of babel, a technocratic revival of Mad King Ludwig’s castle building projects. The Russians died for collective agriculture and inspiring posters of grim workers hoeing the earth and electrifying the countryside. Everyone else died because they were either in the way of one vision or the other. Then they died so that a United Europe and a United Nations might usher in a better world.

The world of tomorrow has seen better days. The West is still in love with the future. If you doubt that, stop by an Apple Store and marvel at all the shiny surfaces. Try not to notice that the aesthetic is a retro futurism because even our future has become our past. Forty years after the Soviet Union tried to land a Mars rover and fifteen years since the first time we did it successfully, we landed a bigger and better rover on Mars. We may not be able to reach the ISS without taking a ride on Soviet Soyuz tubs, but the parts of NASA that aren’t dedicated to proving that science and technology are burning up the planet through Global Warming, can still execute an occasional engineering triumph.

http://www.emetonlineblog.com/2012/08/the-answer-is-blowing-in-the-wind/ ” Everything would have been fine, if only Hitler wouldn’t have lied to me.” -Neville Chamberlain As I write these words, I am returning home from a trip to Prague, Vienna and Budapest. Part of the reason for this trip was to find out where, under these ancient cobble stone streets, or perhaps on […]

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2012/08/15/two-ways-israel-can-deter-a-nuclear-iran_print.html Louis Rene Berés is a professor of international law in the department of political science at Purdue University. Before making his final preemption decisions on a still-nuclearizing Iran, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must first make a carefully informed judgment on Iranian rationality. In essence, he will have to determine, systematically and dispassionately, whether […]

Genocide looms for white farmers South Africa’s black president sings killing songs as thousands massacred By Alex Newman

http://www.wnd.com/2012/08/genocide-looms-for-white-farmers/

STOCKHOLM, Sweden – The eyes of the world were on South Africa two decades ago as the apartheid era came to an end and Western governments helped bring the communist-backed African National Congress to power.
Last month, however, when Genocide Watch chief Gregory Stanton declared that white South African farmers were facing a genocidal onslaught and that communist forces were taking over the nation, virtually nobody noticed.

Few outside of South Africa paid attention either when, earlier this year, the president of South Africa began publicly singing songs advocating the murder of whites.

The silence is so deafening that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn’t even publicly mention the problems when she was there last week. Instead, she was busy dancing, pledging billions of dollars and praising the ruling government.

“I find that quite disturbing, as if Afrikaner lives do not count for the Obama administration,” Dan Roodt of the Pro-Afrikaans Action Group, PRAAG, told WND.

He says the situation is rapidly deteriorating.

Genocide Watch, a highly respected U.S.-based nonprofit organization led by arguably the world’s foremost expert on genocide, has been sounding the alarm on the genocidal onslaught facing South Africa for a decade. The world media, however, has barely uttered a word about it.

Over those 10 years, thousands of white South African farmers, known as Boers, have been massacred in the most horrific ways imaginable.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=281560

THE GREAT HOPE OF AFRICAN INDEPENDENCE AND THE END OF APARTHEID IS GOING THE WAY OF ZIMBABWE WITH LAND SEIZURES AND ENDEMIC CORRUPTION….RSK

Dear Mr. Ebrahim,
You are a minister of the South African government, appointed to advance the interests of the Republic and the people of South Africa in an impartial and rational manner. As a citizen and as a national religious leader of South Africa, I object to the way in which you are abusing your high office to promote your own personal agenda. You obviously have a “blind spot” when it comes to Israel; you lose your sense of objectivity and rationality when dealing with the Jewish state.

Most recently you have used your platform and title in an active campaign to prevent South Africans – and especially members of government – from visiting Israel. This is but one example of your irrational obsession with Israel to the detriment of the proper execution of your governmental duties. You have acted in breach of your government’s own foreign policy, in terms of which South Africa and Israel have full diplomatic relations.

Your actions hark back to apartheid-style control of information and censorship. Why would you try to prevent South Africans from traveling to Israel and seeing the situation for themselves? Do you think, Mr.

Ebrahim, that the South African people are not as clever as you are, that they cannot think for themselves and that they need to be protected from the facts? Maybe you are afraid – and rightly so – that if people go to Israel and see the situation for themselves their perspective will be completely different. Are you worried that they will see that, in fact, there is no apartheid in Israel? South Africans visiting Israel will find a multiracial, multi-ethnic vibrant society where more than 1.5 million Arabs live as full and equal Israeli citizens, vote as part of a single national voters’ roll and have full legal rights in all areas of society. Are you concerned that when South Africans travel on buses, visit parks, malls, hospitals and university campuses, attend the Israeli parliament and the Supreme Court they will find Jews and Arabs living and working together in complete equality? They may hear, for example, that, in fact, it was an Arab judge who convicted former Israeli president Moshe Katsav on rape charges.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/159035 REPORTED BY RACHEL HIRSHFELD

SHALL WE NOW SAY”ALLAHBION” INSTEAD OF ALBION?

A report by Britain’s Department for Education and Skills noted that an increasing number of schools are ceasing to teach the Holocaust in history lessons in order to avoid offending Muslim students.

The report, titled “Teaching Emotive and Controversial History,” also observed that many educators are reluctant to teach other topics that may contradict what is being said in local mosques.

Furthermore, the website Family Security Matters reported that, “In an effort to counter ‘Islamophobia’ in British schools, teachers now are required to teach ‘key Muslim contributions such as Algebra and the number zero’ in math and science courses, even though the concept of zero originated in India.”

In addition, students at the Alsager High School in Cheshire were “punished by their teacher for refusing to pray to Allah as part of their religious education class,” according to the website.

The article further noted that non-Muslim children at an elementary school in Scotland were required to visit a mosque in Glasgow, where they were instructed to recite the shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith, which states, “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger.”

http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=281740

BERLIN – The chairwoman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ileana Ros- Lehtinen (R-Florida), sent a letter – ahead of the annual Al-Qods Day marches in Europe on Saturday – to José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, urging the EU to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

European Hezbollah supporters play a key role in the marches.

Ros-Lehtinen wrote, “Hezbollah has executed attacks in the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America, killing hundreds of people and wounding countless others.”

She added that a ban is warranted because of Hezbollah’s active weapons and financial support for a range of terrorist groups – including Hamas and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

A former social democratic deputy in the Bundestag, Gert Weisskirchen, spoke at the “No Al-Qods Day” rally on Saturday in Berlin and called on the EU “to stand with Israel, without ifs and ands.”

Germany’s domestic intelligence noted in a new report that the number of Hezbollah members increased from 900 in 2010 to a current figure of 950 radical Islamists.

Pro-Israel groups and speakers called on the German government on Saturday at the anti-Al-Qods Day protest to ban Hezbollah in the Federal Republic because it promotes terrorism and modern anti-Semitism.

http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/letters/2012/08/17/letter-exposing-israel
THIS VENOM IS SPREAD THROUGH ANOTHER OF THE MYRIAD THE BOYCOTT AND DIVEST MOVEMENTS AND THE INTERNATIONAL “PEACE”MONITORS…..AND THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES….. THE SCREED IS BELOW THIS EXCELLENT RESPONSE FROM DAVID HERSCH….RSK

David Hersch SAIPAC
The South African Israel Public Affairs Committee
Cape Town

Business Day 17 August 2012.

David Hersch

I was living in Israel during 2009 and 2010 when Crawford-Browne was there with the World Council of Churches (WCC), not an organisation friendly to Israel’s either. He morphs from describing himself as an “international peace monitor”, being there on behalf of the United Nations, to admitting to being there with the WCC. At that time he was staying at the Augusta Victoria, a church-hospital complex located on the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem, not far from Mount Scopus. I was aware of his presence and his spuriously agendised dispatches from Israel.

Standing at a checkpoint near Bethlehem, he was no “peace monitor”, but rather a self-appointed irritation with no attempt or intention on his part to acquire real knowledge and balance on the situation.

To Israel’s credit and proof of how democratic it actually is, it allows the likes of Crawford-Browne to enter Israel with their nefarious agendas. Compare this to the South African Government not allowing the Dalai Lama to enter this country for a one day birthday bash for Desmond Tutu.

As for the so-called “apartheid wall”, which Crawford-Browne likes to repetitively rehash, I lived next to it at Mevaseret Zion, just outside Jerusalem, and it is the finest defence against rampant suicide bombers and attacks on Israelis. Think of this fence, 94% of it is wire except where sniping can or did take place, in the same way as the burglar bars and security doors on most of our homes. Why do we have burglar bars? Simply because we want to be safe in our homes, which is an inalienable human right. So what makes Israelis that different from the rest of the world in this regard? Absolutely nothing…. except in Crawford-Browne’s mind.

And the “apartheid roads”, another perennial rehash of his? Crawford-Browne neglects to tell us that the Israeli Supreme Court opened Route 443, a main highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, to the Palestinians living near it. However, in the same way as South Africa has checkpoints at our borders, airports and harbours, so does Israel. The area controlled by the Palestinian Authority, Areas A & B in terms of the Oslo Agreements, which the Palestinians are a signatory to, are no different to Lesotho or Swaziland and if people pass from these countries to South Africa, they go through checkpoints. The roads in Lesotho and Swaziland all lead to checkpoints as do the roads under the Palestinian Authority.

Readers are reminded that the Arab attacks on Jews have been going on for more than a hundred years, long before there was a State of Israel and long before there was a 1967 war that forced Israel to take over the former illegally annexed Jordanian occupied area of the “West Bank”, an area originally allocated and technically still belonging to Israel in terms of the Mandate by the League of Nations, the San Remo Conference and later also adopted and confirmed by its successor, the United Nations and never rescinded

Crawford-Browne trots out his usual boring list of uncontextualised, selectively untruthful and unproven comparative analogies, sentimental claptrap and conspiracy theories. All irrelevant and repetitive. He didn’t leave one out this time as they rapidly ran into each other. What utter balderdash!

As for “the Zionist lobby loudly tries to divert attention to Syria” Mr Crawford-Browne, there is no need for any attention being diverted to Syria as Syria is doing a wonderful job doing so all by itself.

Crawford-Browne tries to put a spin on a “Zionist Lobby” and thereby imply a bad connotation. Lobbies are part of every day political life in most democratic countries and I would say the Arab/Muslim lobby is highly active in South Africa and elsewhere. Crawford-Browne, by divulging he is the Secretary, SA organising committee for the discredited Russell Tribunal on Palestine, reveals inadvertently that he too is a lobbyist. He is certainly earning his honours in Agitprop, which by definition is a way of conveying an extreme left-wing message via the media and other means. This is a term and technique that originated and was perfected in the unlamented USSR.

Crawford-Browne can glibly ignore what is going on in Syria. He takes no notice and is blind to the daily carnage and deaths which is there for all to see on TV News Channels every day. Over the past year the daily death toll has risen daily and is now reaching 14,000 people. No protests? No criticism? No boycotting of Syrian exports? No morality? Only blindness and bigotry. Not a care as it is fine in his mind for Arabs and Muslims to kill each other by the thousands in his highly selective view, as long as they are not Jewish. Is this just another inconvenient truth to ignore Mr Crawford-Browne?

Those who demonise and delegitimise Israel, who say the world would be better off without it, who hold it to standards of perfection no other country is held to, who extol or commiserate with its mortal enemies, who obscenely liken it to Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa, who make it the scapegoat not only for crimes it hasn’t committed, but for those of which it is a victim — yes, such people are anti-Semitic, whether they acknowledge it or not and when they are Jewish on top of it, they are simply traitors. You are such a person Mr Crawford-Browne. You are an anti-Semite which you hide in a cloud of righteousness and pretence.

I quote from Crawford-Browne’s own Lord, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake”…. and He wasn’t talking about you Mr Crawford-Browne.

There are stories that Israel’s next tank will not be heavily armored. Instead, they will rely on an active defense such as the Trophy system.

See a video of the Trophy System. Trophy has intercepted RPG rounds fired from Gaza.

The US is trying it on American tanks in Iraq. [Jan Poller]

press@understandingwar.org

ISW Publishes Must-Read Backgrounder on Israeli Integrated Missile Defense System

Israel exists under a threat of mortar, rocket, and missile attack that has grown from intermittent harassment to a constant and existential strategic threat.

In a new Backgrounder titled “ Threat and Response: Israeli Missile Defense,” ISW Senior Naval Analyst Christopher Harmer provides a clear picture of the technology and weapons used to attack Israel, as well as the defense initiatives the Israel Defense forces (IDF) have used to counter these threats, namely the world’s first battle-tested, integrated missile defense shield.

At the tactical level, the Iron Dome component of the IDF missile shield has proven effective at intercepting inbound mortars and rockets from both Gaza and southern Lebanon. From a strategic perspective, the system has changed the risk/reward ratio for Hamas and Hezbollah operatives. Harmer examines the types of weapons that threaten Israel, including mortars, rockets, and the infamous Scud, Shahab and Sejil missiles.