RUTHFULLY YOURS

Amid rising anxiety, CRIF President Roger Cukierman tells journalists his group shouldn’t be seen as an annex to the Israeli embassy

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/157686/new-look-for-crif

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In mid-December, France’s President François Hollande held a reception at the Elysée palace in honor of the 70th anniversary of the CRIF, as the umbrella organization of French Jews is known. Hollande, whose delivery is often wooden and halting, was unusually at ease with his guests and made sure to note in his remarks that he was celebrating “by extension, all the Jews in France.”

The abiding impression of President Hollande’s substantial address [1]—close to 20 minutes—was that the république of diversity could not ask for a better element than the Jews. At a time when thorny issues of immigration and integration of the growing Muslim population threaten to disturb the peace in France, Hollande expressed appreciation for a community that is both an integral part of the history of France—the CRIF, he noted, was created in 1943, during the Nazi occupation, alongside the Conseil National de la Résistance—and, by virtue of the tens of thousands of North African Jews who arrived in France in the 1960s, a model of integration. Hollande also renewed his public promises to combat the rising tide of anti-Semitism that plagues Jews in France today, and he spoke about his November state visit to Israel, describing the country as a refuge. “Your attachment to Israel is normal,” he said. “You don’t have to apologize for it.”

And yet that appears to be what the president of the CRIF, Roger Cukierman, is doing. At a private luncheon with a handful of journalists one week before the anniversary celebration, Cukierman—a banker—outlined a “new look” for the organization, which he previously headed for two terms, starting in 2001. During the six-year hiatus between the end of his last term, in 2007, and his re-election this past spring, he said [2], the CRIF has come to be seen “an annex to the Israeli embassy … an association of right-wing fascists notorious for their unconditional support of the Israeli government.” That image, he went on, “does not correspond to reality.”

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2742/Happy-Birthday-Chairman-Mao.aspx

The reporting on China’s commemoration of the 120th birthday of Mao Zedong all seemed to come from the same angle. Festivities were “understated” (Associated Press). Events were “scaled back” (Reuters). The following headline, which ran on the Fox News website over the AP story, is typical: “China marks Mao’s 120th birthday with low-key celebrations.” The story opens: “China’s leaders bowed three times before a statue of Mao Zedong on the 120th anniversary of his birth Thursday in carefully controlled celebrations that also sought to uphold the market-style reforms that he would have opposed.”

Forget for now the “market-style reforms.” Only three times? How “muted”! That, by the way, was the word CNN used to describe the occasion.

But there’s something wrong with this media picture. Imagine if, on Adolf Hitler’s upcoming 125th birthday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel were to bow three times in front of the Nazi mass-murderer’s statue. Would journalists convey how “ambivalent” (Voice of America’s word for post-Mao China) post-Hitler Germany was about Hitler these days? Hardly. They would most likely write in unconcealed horror over the twisted but enduring appeal of Nazism. Why are we not equally repelled when Chinese leaders bow in front of a statue of a communist mass-murderer? (I examine this double standard at length in my book, American Betrayal.)

The New York Times and CNBC ran headlines wishing “Happy Birthday, Chairman Mao,” but, again, don’t expect similar felicitations on Hitler’s birthday. It’s communists who always get a pass – or a yawn. “Communist Party feeling uneasy about Mao ahead of his birthday celebrations,” the Washington Post reported. With my imaginary Merkel example in mind, the paper’s update would read: “Nazi Party feeling uneasy about Hitler ahead of his 125th birthday.” Somehow, though, it’s hard to imagine news editors being so blasé.

Then again, there is no Nazi Party today, and Hitler is a universal symbol of evil. Why? In defeat, Nazi Party leader Hitler and his slaughters were exposed, judged and condemned. Nothing of the kind has ever happened to communism, and in China, of course, Mao’s Communist Party won the war. Despite Red China’s successful entry in recent decades into the world market, it remains a totalitarian dictatorship, ruled by the same Communist Party that Mao led and seized power with in 1949.

There are all sorts of awards coming up…Tonys, Oscars, and myriad awards for journalists- APME, SPJ, Data Journalism and so on.

In Greek mythology Apate was the spirit of deceit, guile and deception. Her counterpart was Dolos the god of trickery, craftiness and treachery.

So how about the Apate and Dolos awards?

Both the Apate and the Dolos should be awarded to The New York Times for all the disinformation they saw fit to print in 2013. The Dolos should be awarded by Thomas Friedman and the Apate, a little statue of Helen Thomas should be awarded by Christiane Amanpour.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/davidhornik/the-strange-moral-calculus-of-john-kerry/print/

On Wednesday the Israeli daily Maariv reported (summarized in English here) that the Israeli defense establishment

totally reject[s] the American proposal for security arrangements in the Jordan Valley…. The American proposal presented to Israel was based on a limited Israeli presence at the border crossings along the Jordan River for a limited number of years, together with the massive use of technological means such as satellites and drones that would replace the army’s presence on the ground.

The position of the security services, as agreed upon recently by the Defense Minister, is that no replacement for the IDF will protect Israel’s security interests, and that even the most advanced technological means do not offer a serious alternative.

Thursday found Secretary of State John Kerry in Israel for the tenth time since taking office last February. His mission was described as “pushing for the sides to agree on guidelines for what the final deal would look like.”

Meanwhile it was reported again that the Palestinian side—including Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and all his negotiators and officials—totally rejects any compromise, even a diluted, temporary Israeli military presence, in the Jordan Valley, calling it “Palestinian” even though it has never been under Palestinian rule and has been an Israeli territory since 1967.

Considering that other “core issues” like Jerusalem, “refugees,” and the borders of a putative Palestinian state are no less difficult, it is, as usual, perplexing to see Kerry continuing to invest American resources and prestige in pursuit of “guidelines” for a “final deal.”

But the show has to go on, and on Tuesday a third batch of twenty-six convicted Palestinian terrorist murders were freed; the release of four such groups was, after all, Abbas’s condition for entering the talks at all.

As Elliott Abrams noted in a perceptive blog post:

the prisoner releases are not CBMs [confidence-building measures]; they are CDMs, confidence-destroying measures. With some American pressure, Prime Minister Netanyahu has released a third tranche of long-serving security prisoners—murderers, to be exact.

The first thing this does is diminish confidence in the United States. After all, we never do this; we never release murderers or terrorists from our prisons for political reasons. That we expect Israel to do so teaches Israelis that we will ask Israel to take risks we would not take, and do not fully understand the security situation they face.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/the-magical-thinking-of-the-left/print/

The Supreme Court of Iceland has ordered a halt to road construction because of the environmental impact on the elves. Most of the modern world no longer believes in elves, fairies or gnomes; but environmentalists still do.

Members of the environmentalist terrorist group Earth Liberation Front refer to themselves as “elves” and to their acts of sabotage and vandalism as “elving” or “pixieing.” Environmentalist eco-pagans divided themselves into “fairies” and “trolls” with the fairies sticking to non-violence while the trolls were more apt to get physical.

The Dragon Environmental Network, which in its own words “links environmental action with magical practice,” is one of the more successful environmental neo-pagan activist groups. DEN boasts of using “eco-magic” to stop progress and “channel positive energy.” The basic principles of their environmental activism include “honoring the fair folk”; better known as the fairies.

Trolls, fairies, goblins and elves are easy enough to laugh off and those who believe in them can be dismissed as irrational; but the fairy hunters fool more people when they slip out of their tunics and pointed ears and slip on their white lab coats and parkas.

The “Australasian Antarctic Expedition” set off to another cold place not in search of elves, but in search of melting ice. Unlike the original expedition it knew exactly what it wanted to find. One of the purposes of the expedition was to “determine the extent to which human activity and pollution has directly impacted on this remote region of Antarctica.”

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4545/jews_as_rats_and_crows_scandal_on_palestinian_tv_involves_funding_from_eu_and_world_bank
THE PREZ OF THE WORLD BANK IS JIM YON KIM , PhD,MD AND FORMER PREZ OF DARTMOUTH….RSK

Palestinian Media Watch, a leading NGO monitoring the Palestinian media, has just come out with some shocking revelations of extreme anti-Semitic language on Palestinian TV. Funding from the EU, the World bank and others is involved (see below).

“The PA TV broadcast spoke about “crows” while showing visuals of religious Jews, and stated that “the rats are armed” while showing visuals of Israeli soldiers,” PMW said.

Jews as “rats” was a central theme of Nazi propaganda, and facilitated the Holocaust by dehumanising the Jewish people.

The press release said it was an episode of the programme Sights of Jerusalem broadcast in October. (It often takes time for such information to filter through since NGOs working in the West Bank and Gaza as well as Western journalists, habitually refuse to report information casting a bad light on the Palestinians, even if it is factually correct).

PMW quoted from the broadcast thus:

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/when-the-press-is-a-poodle?f=puball This nation’s founders had a special role in mind for the media in the constitutional arrangements they carefully constructed.  It was to provide a fourth source of checks and balances on the potential abuse of power by the three branches of government, by virtue of journalists’ independence and, if assured freedom of the press, […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/an-ungrateful-congress-screws-its-own-military

The budget just passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President Obama is shameful because it reduces the cost of living allowance (COLA) by 1% for military retirees under age 62.

In an effort for full discloser, I am a retired U.S. Army Reserve Chief Warrant Officer Five and Afghanistan War veteran. This COLA reduction will not affect me because I’ll be 62 by the time the reduction kicks in.

Younger retirees will soon lose tens of thousands of dollars they were promised when they volunteered to join the military. Elected politicians scoff at that because they claim these younger retirees will join the civilian workforce and have additional income in their retirement years. Have they considered how this will affect the over 50,000 retired servicemen and women who suffer from PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury, or are physically handicapped from the lost of one or more limbs on the battlefields of Iraq or Afghanistan? These wounded warriors, who may never become gainfully employed again, were not exempted from the reduction in the COLA.

I fault both Democrats and Republican members of Congress who in their haste to go home for the Christmas holidays, decided it was more important to get out of town then actually consider the ramifications of their budget vote.

After the fact, Rep. Julia Brownley (D-CA), who voted for the budget, has introduced H.R. 3804, which would completely repeal the reduction in COLA for military retirees. She wants it both ways like most politicians do. Rep. Rodney Davis, (R-IL) and Michael Fitzpatrick (R-PA), both of whom voted for the budget, have introduced similar bills as well.

Will States’ Rights Go to Pot?

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/367432/will-states-rights-go-pot-jonah-goldberg

On January 1, the Centennial State (it hasn’t yet changed its nickname to “The Rocky Mountain High State”) became the first place in the country to legalize marijuana sales for recreational purposes.

And Brandon Harris is stoked.

The 24-year-old Harris drove 20 hours from Cincinnati, along with a smoking buddy, to be the first Ohioans to buy legal pot in Colorado.

“It’s such a big day in history,” Harris, told the Washington Times. “The fact that we don’t have to be criminals and can just smoke, and not be looked down on, or have to mess with the local police.”

Well, he’s mostly right. Americans are still free — for now, at least — to look down on people for whatever reason we want. Simply because an activity is legal doesn’t mean I am barred from judging you negatively for engaging in it.

Decorating your room from floor to ceiling with Justin Bieber posters is perfectly legal — so long as you keep the paper a safe distance from the votive candles on your Bieber shrine. But if I walked into my doctor’s office and saw such a display, I would search for a new doctor pretty quickly. The same goes if I found out he was a big pot smoker.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/367460/great-equalizers-rich-lowry New York City mayor Bill de Blasio gave a kind of St. Crispin’s Day speech for progressives at his New Year’s Day inauguration ceremony. He evoked a city ravaged by a crisis of inequality. What Rudy Giuliani was to out-of-control crime, de Blasio wants to be to rampant inequality — its scourge and vanquisher. […]