RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://pjmedia.com/blog/israeli-confidence-building-measures-a-bloody-track-record/?print=1

The perennial Arab war on Israel — which we dignify with neutral titles like “Arab/Israeli conflict” — tries the patience of bystanders, yet politicians are continually tantalized at the prospect of another round of talks, and predictably support what are termed Israeli “confidence-building measures.” Two recent examples:

* Jerusalem Post [1], February 3: “Quartet envoy Tony Blair is involved in intensive talks with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu about putting together a package of economic gestures to keep the Palestinians directly engaged with Israel in low-level talks in Jordan.”

* Agence France Presse [2], February 2: “[UN Secretary-General] Ban [Ki-moon] has this week urged Israel to make ‘goodwill gestures’ to tempt the Palestinians back to talks.”

Note that Israel is not being asked to make these “gestures” in return for anything. It is urged to do so merely to entice the Palestinian Authority (PA) to negotiate with it. In other words, the intended “gestures” are unilateral Israeli concessions. Unfortunately, peace has never been facilitated by Israeli unilateral concessions. Quite the contrary.

Defending Shariah in America By Pamela Geller
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/defending_shariah_in_american.html

America, apologizing to brutal murderers for disposing of terrorist messages in a quran, is Shariah law in America.

America, Judge Martin dismissing the charges against a Muslim who attacked a Halloween parade goer because his costume was an insult to Muhammad, is the Shariah.

America, mosqueing the workplace is the Shariah.

America, demonizing and marginalizing of pro-freedom voices like mine, like those of my colleagues, is the Shariah.

America, mosqueing the public school is the Shariah in America.

America, mosqueing the neighborhood is the Shariah in America.

The Washington Post on March 2 ran a piece written by Omar Sacirbey for the Religion News Service. Muslims launch campaign to ‘understand’ Shariah. It began: “Against a backdrop of heartland fears that U.S. Muslims seek to impose Islamic law on American courts, a leading Muslim group will launch a campaign on Monday (March 5) to dispel what it called misconceptions about Shariah.”

http://bigpeace.com/driehl/2012/03/03/probe-korans-placed-in-trash-by-soldiers-inadvertently-burned-by-afghan-workers/#more-199224
Probe: Korans Placed in Trash by Soldiers, Inadvertently Burned by Afghan Workers

The Sky News headline does not tell the full story; it appears several enlisted men were directed to dispose of the Korans found to have been burned, but they were not given clear orders how to get rid of them. The actual burning was apparently begun by Afghans manning the pit. You have to read far down in the linked story to read this. Emphasis mine.

US officials said several of the soldiers, who have not been publicly identified, are likely to face disciplinary proceedings.

They were not told to burn the books, although it’s unclear how they were supposed to dispose of Muslim texts. ‘There were crossed wires,’ said one official familiar with the investigation. ‘There’s no indication this was a deliberate attempt to defile religious materials.’

Afghan workers at the burn pit spotted several Korans in the flames and ’started getting riled up’ over the desecration of holy books, another official said. The workers pulled several charred books from the fire and told other Afghans, igniting widespread outrage.

http://www.raymondcook.net/blog/index.php/category/anti-zionism-doesnot-equal-anti-semitism/ How often do we hear or read about how terrible Israel is preventing Palestinians in dire need of medical treatment getting through checkpoints and borders quickly enough?How many reports have you read which characterise the massive humanitarian efforts of the Israeli medical community as somehow being part of the ‘occupation’? I have written before […]

http://melaniephillips.com/justice-and-evil

By chance, I happened to read William Shawcross’s new book Justice and the Enemy: Nuremberg, 9/11 and the Trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed straight after finally catching up with Deborah Lipstadt’s The Eichmann Trial, which was published last year.

The congruence between these two fine books is striking. Both consider the impact and challenges of trying to administer civilian justice to people accused of crimes whose very nature and scope lie well outside the confines of normal democratic societies. Separated by some five decades, the question of how to confront evil through justice remains problematic – but attitudes have sharply diverged.

Everything about the iconic 1961 trial in Israel of former SS Lieutenant Adolf Eichmann was controversial. In a cloak and dagger operation described by Lipstadt (who also shows how inattentive Israeli officials nearly scuppered the whole thing), Eichmann was captured in Argentina by Israeli agents and spirited away to Jerusalem where he stood trial.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

“Giving up the narrative means giving up the battle and eventually the war. The left’s strength is terminology shifting. That is its ball. When it manages to make its terminology shift go mainstream, then it sinks a ball into the basket and scores a point. It has been scoring a lot of those points since the 1930’s. We haven’t. That is why we may win elections, but we don’t really change things.”

Modern political warfare is a battlefield in which small battles give way to the larger conflict for national rule and succession. In feudal times such conflicts might be settled with a coalition of lords aligned one way or another. In the modern colonial territories between the Atlantic and the Pacific, populated by a fragmented collection of states, races, religions and classes, the coalitions are assembled out of those groups.

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2046/In-Jihad-We-Trust.aspx
The AP reports:
A trend of Afghan treachery that has taken the lives of six American troops over the past week is poisoning a key ingredient in the international coalition’s formula for winding down the decade-long war: trust.
Not just “a” key ingredient. “Trust,” according to former Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, is the “coin of the realm” in Afghanistan. “Lose the people’s trust,” he wrote in early 2009, “and we lose the war.” That was non-sense then and it is non-sense now. It is little wonder, then, that the COIN war the US has led all these year in pursuit of Afghan trust has failed so miserably.
Why? From the archive, February 19, 2009:
The buzzword on Afghanistan is “trust.”

Having routed the Taliban, liberated millions, midwived a (Sharia-supreme) constitution, assisted in elections, propped up a government and routed the Taliban some more, all the United States needs now to win victory in Afghanistan is to win the “trust” of the Afghan people.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/purim-all-over-again/  Purim All Over AgainBy: Yedidya Atlas  Some 2,000 years ago, the Jewish people in Exile in the vast empire of Persia faced a plot engineered by the king’s chief minister to annihilate the Jews. The salvation of the Jews at that time is commemorated since then by Jews everywhere as the Jewish holiday of […]

THE LATE EZER WEIZMAN, WAR HERO AND PRESIDENT OF ISRAEL DID THAT FOR JIMMY CARTER WHO WENT ON TO LOSE IN A LANDSLIDE…..RSK http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/peres-obama-is-a-great-president-security-ties-are-the-best-we-ve-ever-had-1.416030 Israeli President Shimon Peres on Thursday said that U.S. President Barack Obama is “a great president and a great friend of Israel,” and that security cooperation between the U.S. and Israel […]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203753704577255322862397942.html?mod=opinion_newsreel

Nobody could believe North Korea’s luck when its soccer squad scored a goal off mighty Brazil at their 2010 World Cup match-up in South Africa. So we’ll forgive Kim Jong Eun if he feels like the diplomatic equivalent of Robinhood for the point he just won against the Obama Administration.

On Wednesday, North Korea announced that it would stop enriching uranium, suspend its nuclear tests and allow U.N. nuclear inspectors to inspect its nuclear facilities (or at least those it chooses to declare).