RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/2013/04/10/passing-the-buck/

There was a time, before the sixties, when the function of a university was to act in loco parentis, offering guidance, direction and discipline to students seeking to benefit from older, wiser minds. After that decade’s watershed capitulation of authority by administrators and faculty empowered to know better, nothing has been quite the same. The latest kerfuffle to illustrate this abandonment of reason is the one currently unfolding at Cardozo Law School. The editors of the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution have chosen Jimmy Carter as the recipient of their International Advocate of Peace Award. This has angered many people, especially alumni, since Cardozo is a part of Yeshiva University, a school singularly dedicated to the support and well-being of Israel. Jimmy Carter, a long-time beneficiary of Saudi Arabia’s payroll, has been unsurprisingly and selectively critical of Israel, characterizing its policies towards Palestinians as apartheid.

The president of Yeshiva U, Richard M. Joel, has explained that it is the students’ job to run the Journal and make all decisions regarding the award. The dean of Cardozo, Matthew Diller, has fudged the issue further by stating that one of the necessary attributes of a law school is to be an “open and diverse community with a cacophony of ideas which people are free to express.” Neither of these men in supposed command is willing to distinguish between the concept of freedom of speech and the bestowal of an honor upon an individual who stands antithetically opposed to the essence of a university’s commitments. Imagine students at West Point deciding to honor a pacifist or students at Barnard selecting a known misogynist – would the top administrators simply forfeit the responsibilities of their office and refuse to intervene? Every student organization on a campus is subsidized by the university and must be subject to its inherent mandate, just as individuals have to abide by school guidelines. When a line gets crossed, administrators are the ones paid to restore the proper decorum – the buck must ultimately stop there. At Rutgers now, we see the clamor for removing the president of the university for not doing enough to stop a coach from expressing abusive behavior and homophobic comments to the members of the basketball team.

http://bit.ly/YeoLp9

1. “The flow of natural gas from Israel’s Tamar reservoir in the Mediterranean to the Ashdod reception facility was inaugurated on March 30, 2013, ushering in a new era in Israel’s energy sector [led by the Houston-based Noble Energy]. Israel will not only become independent in being able to supply its own energy needs, but it is likely to become an energy exporter as its maritime gas fields are further developed…. The amount of gas discovered offshore now dwarfs any feasible, projected Israeli demand for at least half a century….Israel will become a net exporter of gas….Europe would seem to be the natural export market for Israeli gas….Yet Asia may emerge as Israel’s preferred export destination. The Australian firm, Woodside, which acquired about a third of the rights to the Leviathan field, is oriented toward marketing gas in Asia, and envisions building a liquefaction plant to service that trade….Israel will view with apprehension any scheme to anchor its critical infrastructure in countries beyond its own borders, such as Jordan, Cyprus, or Turkey…. (Dr. David Wurmser, April 4, 2013).

2. Hewlett-Packard (HP) is the second largest investor – trailing Intel – in Israel’s information technology sector, with 6,000 employees. HP’s Israel-developed products carry the Indigo and Scitetx Vision brands (Southeast-Israel Business News, March, 2013).

3. The Chicago-based AllScripts acquired Israel’s dbMotion for $235MN (Globes Business Daily, March 6, 2013).

4. The globe’s largest biotech company, Roche of Basel, Switzerland, concluded a joint venture with Israel’s Chiasma, developing and commercializing Chiasma’s Octreolin for acromegaly and neuroendocrine tumors. Roche received a worldwide exclusive license in return for an upfront payment of $65MN and additional $530MN in milestones and royalties (Globes, February 19).

5. Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) and Israel’s Amdocs are establishing a joint development center in Israel. Amdocs operates a similar center with AT&T. SingTel intends to invest in a few Israeli start-ups, following its acquisition – in March 2012 – of Israel’s Amobee for $321MN (Globes, March 4). Germany’s global optical giant, Zeiss, is establishing a research and development center in Israel. Five years ago, it acquired Israel’s Pixer (Yedioth Achronot daily, April 4). Michael Dell’s MSD Capital invested $22MN in Israel’s food chain, Rami Levy, increasing its holding to 6.1%. The Boston-based Fidelity acquired 5% of Rami Levy for $27MN (Globes, March 29 and April 8).

6. Hong Kong’s investment mogul, Li Ka Shing’s Horizon Ventures, led an$ 8MN round of private placement by Israel’s Nipendo (Globes, March 12). The Waltham, MA-based Battery Ventures – joined by the Menlo Park, CA-based Opus Capital – led a $10MN second round by Israel’s SiSense (Globes, April 4). The Menlo Park-based Sequoia Capital – joined by T-Mobile – led an $11MN round by Israel’s Innovid (Globes, March 8). Israel’s StarCom raised $4MN at the London Stock Exchange for smaller companies, AIM (March 6).

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3666/germany-islam-elections The study — which corroborates the conclusions of other recent surveys — concludes that the image of Islam in Germany is “devastating.” Germany’s opposition Social Democrats are courting disgruntled Muslim voters in a desperate bid to unseat German Chancellor Angela Merkel in federal elections set for September 22. Peer Steinbrück, the 66-year-old chancellor candidate […]

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2013/04/video-cbs-news-of-great-neck-synagogue-cancellation-of-pamela-geller-talk.html

Due to relentless intimidation, bullying and threats, the Great Neck Synagogue is cancelling my talk at the Great Neck Synagogue on Sunday. Ironically, the subject of my talk was the war on free speech, and this incident shows how urgently this topic needs to be discussed. Leftist thugs, pushed and prodded by Islamic supremacist Habeeb Ahmed and his co-conspirators, threatened a march on the shul (among other things).

It is a very sad day for freedom-loving peoples when fascist tactics trump free speech. This reinforces a terrible precedent: that Islamic supremacists and leftists can get whatever they want, and silence their opponents, by keeping up pressure on decent people until they cave in. In America, they don’t assassinate their foes, but they assassinate their character. While I understand the synagogue’s action, I deplore the cancellation. It shows the inroads that Islamic supremacists and leftists are making in their larger war on the freedom of speech. It hands a victory to thugs and foes of the freedom of speech, as well as the other freedoms and rights that I am dedicated to defending.

In mosques and Islamic centers, the most vitriolic jihad supporters and preachers of hate speak freely. No one complains. No one demonstrates. No one utters a word of protest. But my work that has been consistently in defense of human rights is not allowed to be given a hearing. Mine is a message of freedom, and that message has been forbidden.

“As the notoriety and media exposure of the planned program this Sunday have increased, so has the legal liability and potential security exposure of our institution and it’s [sic] member families. In an era of heightened security concerns it is irresponsible to jeopardize the safety of those who call Great Neck Synagogue home, especially our children, even at the risk of diverting attention from a potentially important voice in the ongoing debate. Accordingly, the Great Neck Synagogue Men’s Club will no longer be sponsoring the appearance of Pamela Geller this coming Sunday, and no event will be taking place in our facility.”

Executive Board
Great Neck Synagogue

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/fjordman/academics-or-agitprop-artists/

In late 2012, the academics Øystein Sørensen, Bernt Hagtvet and Bjørn Arne Steine, among others, published a work in Norway called Høyreekstremisme. Ideer og bevegelser i Europa (“Right-wing extremism. Ideas and Movements in Europe”) I figure prominently in this book, which in my view symbolizes the decay and intellectual dishonesty in modern academia.

Co-editors Bernt Hagtvet and Øystein Sørensen, both of them professors at the University of Oslo, suggest that my ideology is anti-democratic and dangerous and will lead to oppressive and authoritarian societies. It is unclear how this could be the case, since I want to move power away from unelected supranational organizations such as the EU, and back to the people, and reduce state interference in the lives of individual citizens. I must be the first alleged “Fascist” in history who wants less state power over the lives of individual citizens.

The chapter written by Vidar Enebakk on “Fjordman’s radicalization” is particularly incompetent and ridiculously politicized. For example, he refers totally uncritically to the report “Fear, Inc. The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America” from 2011, which was published by the left-wing organization The Center for American Progress, with several Muslim collaborators.

This report was clearly intended to smear people in North America and other Western countries who oppose Islamization and sharia law in any significant way. It also tied Breivik’s terror attacks directly to the emergence of so-called “organized Islamophobia.”

Yet Enebakk claims without a single critical remark on page 63 that the authors of this report mapped and identified “a small network of experts on disinformation, who have largely defined the anti-Muslim hate rhetoric in the USA in the wake of September 11th 2001.”

Knowledgeable individuals such as the Harvard-educated Daniel Pipes are dismissed without further evidence or explanation as “experts on disinformation,” while the words of those who warn against the dangers of Islamic global expansionism and Jihadist aggression are smeared unfairly with the label “hate rhetoric.” If anything, they are warning against hate.

Mr. Enebakk and too many others like him in this manner take the partisan ideological statements of decidedly left-wing organizations at face value and treat them as the Gospel Truth. At the same time, they casually dismiss conservative viewpoints simply as unfounded and irrational “hate.” Enebakk has done virtually nothing to check if some of the statements made by these “Islamophobes” are actually correct, a behavior that violates the most fundamental principles of genuine research and critical investigation.

What we see here is classic agitprop, or agitation propaganda directed against ideological opponents. This kind of aggressive character assassination unfortunately has long traditions among left-wing activists, dating back at least to the Bolsheviks and the Soviet Union.

Science is a method, not a title. Vidar Enebakk likes to wrap himself in the mantle of “science” and pretends to be a scientist, but he does not behave like one, and is therefore unworthy of the title.

Among those allegedly engaged in “systematically spreading Islamophobia in the USA,” Enebakk names Robert Spencer, Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes and David Horowitz. He claims that not only do they spread propaganda and disinformation in the darkest corners of the Internet, they also operate a “well-organized and interconnected network that has systematically financed, produced and disseminated rhetoric of hate and Islamophobia in the United States.”

Notice how hopelessly unscientific this is statement is, written by a person who is supposed to have had scientific training. This is politics, not science. Enebakk describes “rhetoric of hate” (hatretorikk) and “Islamophobia” as being virtually the same thing. He has repeatedly accused me falsely, but very aggressively, of encouraging violence. I have written that I support both the First and the Second Amendment to the US Constitution; that is, freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. I stand by this statement and see nothing wrong with it.

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/leaving-the-totalitarian-left-on-the-glazov-gang/
How the Left Cripples African-Americans — on The Glazov Gang »
by Frontpagemag.com

The racial hate behind the “progressive” mask.

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/michael-kravshik/canadian-left-calls-for-neutrality-on-honor-killings-female-genital-mutilation/print/ Cultural relativism has reached a new point of absurdity in Canada when the “barbarity” of female genital mutilation and honor killings is questioned and becomes a controversy. A recently introduced manual by the Government of Canada intended to teach newcomers about Canadian values and Canadian society has been met with ongoing hostility from left-wing […]

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/davidhornik/kerry-in-israel-blind-alleys-and-empty-words/

Secretary of State John Kerry was in Israel on Monday and Tuesday, after a stop in Turkey. Reports indicate the usual mix of Obama-administration delusions and dubious promises.

The Jerusalem Post reported Israeli officials’ “astonishment” at statements Kerry made in Istanbul on Sunday, when he praised the Turkish government’s “sensitiv[ity]” and lack of “triumphalism” in responding to Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s “apology” over Israel’s Mavi Marmara raid.

That apology was made by phone to Turkish prime minister Erdogan over two weeks ago at the tail-end of President Obama’s visit to Israel. Some believe Obama pressured Netanyahu into making the call; some sources in Israel have said Israeli officialdom was itself keen on mending fences with Turkey out of a hope of renewed strategic cooperation on regional threats.

But what is clear is that Turkey’s response has been less than heartwarming and tends to confirm those who stressed Erdogan’s ideological hostility (if not outright anti-Semitism) toward Israel. As Israeli officials reminded the Post, the Turkish press has been full of reports and interviews with Erdogan and his foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu “gloating over the apology.” A day after the apology, billboards in Ankara gave a clear triumphalist message.

Erdogan has announced plans to visit Hamas in Gaza. Davutoglu hosted a dinner for relatives of Turks killed on the Mavi Marmara and members of the Al-Qaeda-linked IHH organization that sent the ship. Meanwhile Israeli-Turkish talks on supposedly renewing ties have been delayed by two weeks.

Kerry appears to respond to such developments with Orwellian inversions instead of serious stocktaking.

Once in Israel, Kerry surprised no one by pursuing the Palestinian issue, meeting with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and prime minister Salam Fayyad (reportedly soon to be sacked by Abbas). The UK’s Telegraph reports that Kerry “wanted to adopt the Arab Peace Initiative…as a basis” for restarting Israeli-Palestinian talks.

The Arab Peace Initiative was a plan broached by Saudi Arabia in 2002 in an effort to rehabilitate its post-9/11 image. It purports to offer Israel full diplomatic relations with Arab countries in return for withdrawing to indefensible borders and being inundated with Palestinian “refugees.” The Telegraph says Kerry

was said to have proposed wording that would soften the initiative’s demand for Israel to withdraw to pre-1967 borders, saying they could be modified by mutual agreement, while inserting stronger security guarantees for Israel.

It also says Abbas turned him down flat, insisting on full Israeli return to the 1967 lines and the release of terrorists from Israeli prisons. No surprises there either, since Abbas has, on various pretexts, refused talks with Israel since Kerry’s boss assumed office in 2009.

Yet the Telegraph goes on to say that Kerry “is expected to visit Israel and the West Bank every fortnight in an effort to give momentum to efforts at renewing the peace process….”

If accurate, this will be a remarkable waste of American energy and resources on something that has repeatedly proved to be a dead-end at best.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/basic-competencies-and-the-mooc-surge?f=puball It is difficult to know if MOOC’s (Massive Open On-line Courses) are a conspiracy to undermine the Academy or mankind’s final redemption, a way to open the avenues of higher education. However one sees it, millions of people are already taking on-line courses. There is a revolution taking place driven by technology and cost […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/muslims-attack-coptic-cathedral-in-cairo?f=puball On the afternoon of Sunday, April 7, Egyptian police surrounded and protected Saint Mark’s Coptic Cathedral of Cairo, the headquarters of the Coptic Pope, after four hours of attacks on the church by Muslims throwing Molotov cocktails, rocks, and firearms, and where Christians gathered to mourn their dead. A liturgy was being held for […]