RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/davidhornik/regional-threats-loom-large-over-obamas-israel-trip/

Speculations that President Obama was coming to Israel to keep pursuing a blind obsession with the Palestinian issue appeared, fortunately, unsubstantiated by the time of his press conference with Prime Minister Netanyahu on Wednesday evening.

Both leaders’ words were devoted mainly to the Iranian and Syrian issues; Obama’s own words on the Palestinian matter expressed a lowering of expectations and an acknowledgment that the “solution” he had often stridently pursued during his first term was more elusive than he had thought.

In their three-hour talk before the press conference, Netanyahu was accompanied by his national security adviser Yaakov Amidror and his military attaché Yair Zamir; Obama by his security adviser Tom Donilon and Secretary of State John Kerry. The makeup clearly connotes that security issues were paramount.

A grim preface to Obama’s visit was a statement earlier in the day by Yuval Steinitz—Israel’s finance minister in the previous government, now minister of intelligence and strategic affairs—that chemical weapons had been used in Syria. Steinitz did not claim to know whether it was the regime or rebel forces that had used them. AP reports that a “senior [Israeli] defense official… concurred…[based] on intelligence reports.”

Obama has called the use of chemical weapons in Syria a “red line” possibly prompting U.S. military action. Asked about the matter during the press conference, Obama said the U.S. would investigate whether the weapons were used and that “the Assad regime must understand that they will be held accountable for the use of chemical weapons or their transfer to terrorists.”

Lebanon’s Daily Star had reported two days earlier that Israeli planes had dropped flare bombs in southern Lebanon—a possible response or warning about Syrian weapons making their way into Hizballah’s hands.

Obama, in other words, is entering a war zone, not a playground for peace fantasies. Although his visit to Palestinian Authority headquarters and address to Israeli university students on Thursday may yet hold surprises, indications so far are that he has sobered up about Israel’s neighborhood and the real issues it faces.

More critical yet, of course, than the Syrian crisis is Iran’s ongoing march toward a nuclear bomb. Netanyahu told the assembled reporters: “A nuclear Iran is a grave threat. The U.S. is committed to deal with it, Israel is committed to deal with it. Israel has a right to independently defend itself from any threat.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/343428/obama-s-mangled-quotation-craig-s-karpel

President Obama met recently with a group of Jewish leaders about his trip to Israel that begins today. The Washington Post reported that Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, “expressed concern that Obama might be softening his pledge to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, based on recent reports of frustrated international diplomatic efforts,” and then asked Obama what he intends to do to stop Tehran from having nuclear weapons.

The president’s reply, as quoted in the Post: “I’m not going to beat my chest to prove my toughness on this.”

“Obama continued,” the story said, “by citing a quote attributed by some to the Chinese military tactician Sun Tzu, who suggested that a ‘golden bridge’ must be built to give what Obama described as a ‘proud people’ a face-saving retreat to a diplomatic solution.”

According to individuals present at the meeting, the president referred to the quote’s author as “a Chinese philosopher.”

The ancient treatise The Art of War, ascribed to Sun Tzu, contains no reference to a bridge, golden or otherwise. The only passage that resembles Obama’s reference is this dictum, as translated in 1910 by Lionel Giles, head of the British Museum’s Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books department: “When you surround an army, leave an outlet free.”

Giles noted, “This does not mean that the enemy is to be allowed to escape. The object, as Tu Mu [a.d. 803–52] puts it, is ‘to make him believe that there is a road to safety, and thus prevent his fighting with the courage of despair.’ Tu Mu adds pleasantly: ‘After that, you may crush him.’”

The 1963 translation by Samuel B. Griffith, a Marine general who served in China before and after World War II and then earned a doctorate from Oxford in Chinese military history, renders the aphorism as “To a surrounded enemy you must leave a way of escape.” Griffith parsed the commentary by Tu Mu more tersely than did Giles: “Show him there is a road to safety, and so create in his mind the idea that there is an alternative to death. Then strike.”

So for Sun Tzu, the purpose of providing a path for retreat isn’t to avoid hurting the feelings of a “proud people” so that engagement can work its magic. It’s to fool the enemy into believing there’s a way he can avoid a fight to the death — and then to strike and crush him.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

“This vulgar worship of peace as a religion, a creed that restores the faith of faithless men and women in humanity is a combination of empty sentimentality and calculated ignorance.”

“War is peace,” entered our cultural vocabulary some sixty-four years ago. Around the same time that Orwell’s masterpiece was being printed up, an armistice was being negotiated between Israel and the Arab invading armies. That armistice began the long peaceful war or the warring peace.
The entire charade did not properly enter the realm of the Orwellian until the peace process began. The peace process between Israel and the terrorist militias funded by the countries of those invading armies has gone on for longer than most actual wars. It has also taken more lives than most actual wars.

War has an endpoint. Peace does not. A peace in which you are constantly at war can go on forever because while the enthusiasts of war eventually exhaust their patriotism, the enthusiasts of peace never give up on their peacemaking.

Warmongers may stop after a few thousand dead, but Peacemongers will pirouette over a million corpses.

As you read this, Obama is probably stumbling through some ceremony or speech in Israel. The speeches all say the usual things, but there really is only one purpose to the visit. There really ever only is one purpose to these visits. The revisiting of the endless peace war.

Two decades after the peace process has failed in every way imaginable. Two decades after cemeteries on both sides are full of the casualties of peace. Two decades which have created two abortive Palestinian states at war with one another and with Israel.

Two decades later, it’s still time for peace.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324662404578332480755745250.html?mod=WSJ_article_MoreIn_Opinion

President Obama often claims he wants to cut the budget smartly, using a “scalpel”—not a meat axe, machete, cleaver or chainsaw, to list a few of his favorite metaphors. He’ll need a more inspired term to describe what he’s now doing to Medicare Advantage, perhaps napalm or WMD.

The Affordable Care Act drained $306 billion from this growing version of Medicare that 29% of seniors use to escape the traditional entitlement and obtain modern private insurance, but the Administration is imposing the cuts in ways that are even more harmful than the law requires. The post-election timing is no accident.

In 2012 only 4% of the Medicare Advantage cuts were scheduled under the law, but the folks who run Medicare at the Health and Human Services Department improvised a $3.8 billion nationwide “demonstration project” that paid bonus subsidies to Medicare Advantage insurers to improve quality. The project couldn’t demonstrate anything because the payments went to 90% of insurers regardless of quality, but they did cancel out most of the 2012 cuts. That did the trick for voters in Scottsdale or Boca Raton who might have noticed higher costs or lost the coverage they have and prefer.

Federal auditors suggested the project was illegal, but in any case it is now winding down and HHS is making up for lost time. Even as ObamaCare-mandated cuts of roughly 3.4% hit in 2014, out of nowhere HHS gamed the complex formula to conjure a new 2.2% cut in the fixed payments that insurers receive for each senior they cover under Advantage.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324103504578372593347541144.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

It’s been a good week at the Supreme Court for law and the economy. On Tuesday, the Justices unanimously knocked back trial-lawyer forum shopping, and a day later they voted 7-1 to reverse a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the Clean Water Act should include federal government regulation of water runoff on forest roads, a position that contradicted 35 years of environmental law.

In Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center, the issue concerned whether forest roads often used by loggers should be covered by rules that govern much larger industrial sites. That was the goal of environmentalists who hoped they could hobble the logging industry by reclassifying rural storm water runoff under the Clean Water Act’s “point source” standards, which require costly federal permits.

The Environmental Protection Agency has always expressly exempted forest roads from federal permitting, recognizing that more effective regulation could be done by states and state foresters. In his majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the EPA’s consistent position on storm water runoff has been coupled with effective state regulations and expertise.

Meanwhile, in Standard Fire v. Knowles, every Justice united against the trial bar’s latest scheme to evade Congress’s boundaries for class-action lawsuits. In the 2005 Class Action Fairness Act, Congress required that interstate class actions over $5 million be handled by federal courts. The law was an effort to minimize forum shopping in state courts friendly to plaintiffs.

In 2011 Arkansas resident Greg Knowles sued the Standard Fire Insurance company over contractor fees he said were covered by his insurance policy when a hailstorm damaged his house. To keep the case in the plaintiff haven of Miller County, Arkansas, Mr. Knowles said he would limit any potential recovery for the class he would represent below the $5 million threshold.

http://www.chiefrabbi.org/2013/03/12/video-the-will-to-life-chief-rabbi-lord-jonathan-sacks-speaks-to-the-aipac-conference/

Beloved friends, I’m actually only here to give you a change of accents; I just hope you don’t need simultaneous translation. (Laughter.) But I’m here as part of an English delegation to give you the view from Europe. And the view from Europe is that AIPAC is something out of this world. It is just amazing.

Friends, it reminds me, if I can just you this story, lovely story about Yossi, an Israeli, who opened a falafel bar in Golders Green. Golders Green is the English Brooklyn. And Yossi’s falafel bar was one day visited by the tax inspector who was reading through his books and he was saying, Mr. Yossi, this falafel of yours, this is a kind of Jewish takeaway; am I right?

And Yossi, with a big smile, says, yes. The tax inspector says, Mr. Yossi, I understand where you’ve written down as expenses rent, electricity, materials; but why have you written down under business expenses two trips to Miami and three trips to Tel Aviv? And Yossi, with a big smile, said, that’s easy; we deliver! (Laughter.)

Friends, AIPAC, you deliver. You deliver—(applause)—a strong Israel and a strong Jewish people. May God bless you and may you continue to bless the people in the state of Israel.

Friends, I want to tell you how things are looking like in Europe today. When I was a child, there was one line in the Haggadah that I never understood. [Hebrew.] It was not one alone who stood against us. [Hebrew.] But in every generation they did so. And always as a child I used to say, that belongs to my parents’ generation; not to us; not to us born after the Holocaust. I grew up; in all my life I never experienced a single incident of anti-Semitism until 11 years ago.

Eleven years ago, our youngest daughter, who was studying at a British university, came home in tears. She had been at an anti-globalization rally which quickly turned into a tirade first against America, then against Israel, then against Jews. And with tears in her eyes she said, Dad, they hate us. That is a terrible situation, but it’s reality in Europe today.

In the last two weeks there have been stories about the rise of anti-Semitic incidents in France by 58 percent in a single year; in Belgium, 30 percent; in Denmark, doubled in the space of three years. In England—in France and Italy, English football supporters were attacked not because they were Jews but because they were supporting a football team many of whose supporters happened to be Jews. And I don’t know whether you read this—I’m sure you did—last Wednesday the Turkish president, Mr. Erdogan, called Zionism a “crime against humanity.”

I have to tell you that what we grew up with, “never again,” is beginning to sound like “ever again.” And at the heart of it is hostility to Israel. Of course, not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. But make no mistake what has happened.

In the Middle Ages Jews were hated because of their religion. In the 19th century and the 20th, they were hated because of their race. Today, when it’s no longer done to hate people for their religion or their race, today they are hated because of their state. The reason changes, but the hate stays the same. Anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism. (Applause.)

http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Bethlehem-rioters-set-fire-to-pictures-of-Obama-306831 In preparation for US president’s Mideast visit, protestors say he is not welcome in their city, throw shoes at US diplomatic vehicle. Palestinians in Bethlehem set fire to pictures of US President Barack Obama on Monday, saying he was not welcome in their city. Scores of protesters gathered near Manger Square and threw shoes […]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/20/decision-to-extend-trusted-traveler-program-to-saudi-scrutinized/

GEEZ……..WHY NOT LET THEM TAKE BOX CUTTERS TOO?……RSK

A Department of Homeland Security program intended to give “trusted traveler” status to low-risk airline passengers soon will be extended to Saudi travelers, opening the program to criticism for accommodating the country that produced 15 of the 19 hijackers behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Sources voiced concern about the decision to the Investigative Project on Terrorism, which issued a report Wednesday on the under-the-radar announcement — which was first made by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano after meeting in January with her Saudi counterpart. According to the IPT, this would be the first time the Saudi government has been given such a direct role in fast-tracking people for entry into the United States.

“I think you have radical Wahhabism in certain elements in Saudi Arabia, and I think to be more lenient there than in other places would be a mistake,” Rep. Frank Wolf told the Investigative Project on Terrorism. “There were 15 [hijackers] from that country, and there is a lot taking place in that region.”

Only an exclusive handful of countries enjoy inclusion in the Global Entry program — Canada, Mexico, South Korea and the Netherlands. According to the IPT, some officials are questioning why Saudi Arabia gets to reap the benefits of the program, when key U.S. allies like Germany and France are not enrolled; Israel has reached a deal with the U.S., but that partnership has not yet been implemented.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3771

Israel will proudly present a number of amazing technological innovations during U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel. But, due to time constraints, significant innovations that also demonstrate Israel’s knowledge and skills will be left out of the presentation.

Israel is tremendously prolific at inventing and designing advances in fields that help make the world a better place.

Surely Obama is aware that food security is the coming crisis in world diplomacy. Israeli agriculture and water technologies have already helped to feed millions of people, and Israeli experts and their innovative technology are continually helping the world’s developing nations face this urgent new challenge.

Soaring prices, growing shortages and burgeoning population growth have already sparked unrest across the African continent, and the situation could be a harbinger of worse to come across the globe and closer to home.

None of the underlying causes of the growing crisis — population growth, climate change that threatens to flood large areas of cultivated land, and rising transport costs due to possible oil disruptions — are likely to recede in the near future. The fact is, they will likely intensify.

Israel, a desert nation once challenged by its arid geography and a population explosion, has long fed its own population and has invested heavily in research and development to increase food production.

For decades now Israeli agriculture experts have been sharing their know-how with some of the fastest growing and wealthiest nations, as well as some of the poorest regions on earth, creating sustainable self-sufficiency in food and water supplies. Examples of smart, feasible and affordable Israeli solutions are plentiful.

MASHAV, Israel’s Center for International Cooperation, was established in 1958 as a division of the Foreign Ministry. Its agricultural program, the Center for International Agricultural Development Cooperation, was founded on the belief that Israel’s agricultural miracle can be replicated in other countries facing the same kinds of severe food challenges that Israel once faced. According to MASHAV, “Israel’s own tested solutions for problems such as water, capital and land shortages can help the countries of the developing world transform their agriculture from traditional subsistence to sophisticated market-oriented production. It is for this reason many countries of the developing world have sought partnership with Israel addressing their own agricultural challenges.”

THANKS TO PAUL SCHNEE FOR THIS SLEUTHING… A List of Republican Budget Cuts Notice S.S. and the military are NOT on this list. These are all the programs that the new Republican House has proposed cutting. Read to the end. * Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy — $445 million annual savings. * Save America ‘s […]