Displaying posts published in

April 2014

SYDNEY WILLIAMS: POPULISM AND INEQUALITY

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/
Populist political leaders disparage the few in order to win over the many. It is a “divide to conquer” strategy that relies on emotional appeal, rather than rational debate. Such leaders surround themselves with sycophants, rather than a “team of rivals.” They make promises without regard as to how they might be fulfilled, and blatantly lie about their opponents. While they claim to speak for the masses, their concern is for themselves. They are interested in the here and now. The past and the future have no relevance.

Populists are always the most dangerous politicians. In giving things rather than in guiding legislation, they insinuate themselves into the hearts and minds of susceptible voters. Every dictator, whether from the Left or the Right, has had his or her roots in populism. We can look at Lenin and Stalin who strove for equality, in a classless society, but on the way killed or murdered perhaps 40 million people. We can consider Hitler who, in the name of creating a perfect society, murdered six million Jews. Mao Tse-tung did the same thing in China. A few bankers may be greedy and some corporate leaders may be corrupt, but every major campaign against human life has been led by government and almost always under the pretense of fairness and equality.

Inequality has become the banner for today’s populists and “fairness” is their goal. Gillian Tett, writing in last weekend’s Financial Times, noted that media reference to inequality is six times higher this month than in 2005 or 2010. The term “inequality” is expressed simplistically, with little thought as to its causes, or to history. It is generally thought of in terms of financial outcomes. Too little attention is paid to the far more important issue of opportunities. Outcomes are a function of intelligence, diligence, hard work, aspiration and luck. No matter how we measure it, life is not fair, nor can it ever be. Why did my sister die of cancer at the age of 58 and not me? Why have some of my friends become enormously wealthy and not me? Why have my children proved such a blessing, yet those of some my friends been such a burden? Why was I born in this great country when billions of less fortunate were born impoverished in places like Somalia, Haiti or Afghanistan? Innumerable questions, such as these, can be asked with no satisfactory answers.

Yet, the fact that there are no good answers does not mean the questions should not be asked. Like Stuart Little, the quest is important. We should always seek ways, individually, of improving our lives, as well as helping those around us. But we should not be blinded with the expectation that Nirvana will be found. It is the promise of Utopia that drives the Populist, even as we know from history that Utopia is likely to become Dystopia. Ask those who lived in Hitler’s Germany, in Eastern Europe before the Wall came down, in China during the Cultural Revolution, or lovers of freedom today in North Korea, Cuba, Syria, or myriad other countries.

Beating a Dead Dove Abbas and Hamas Kill the “Peace Process.” By Jed Babbin

Tomorrow, April 29, will come and go and no one will be the worse for it. If the date is remembered at all, it will mark yet another failure of President Obama’s diplomacy which did not produce a breakthrough peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Obama and Kerry established the date as an artificial deadline for a peace deal. Because the deadline was artificial, it placed no pressure on the parties for agreement in the latest round of the never-ending Middle East “peace process.” It is never-ending for two reasons, neither of which Obama and Kerry understand.

First, peace — any peace — is reached when and only when one of the belligerents has been defeated or so reduced in its ability to resist that it is compelled to make peace on terms that benefit the other. Israel, though weakened by Obama’s efforts to isolate it and Europe’s strong financial and political support for the Palestinians, is still strong enough to refuse a deal like the one Obama and Kerry were peddling, which would have forced Israel to make concessions on borders and other matters it considers destructive to its national security.

Second, the dominant fact is that without the participation and agreement of the Arab League nations, there cannot be peace between the Palestinians and Israel. You cannot make peace with the surrogate, only with the principal. The Palestinians, at least since 1947, have been nothing more than a political tool of the Arab states.

The Palestinians are not only stronger than they were when Obama took office, they are emboldened by his actions and by the support they get from Europe and the Arab League nations which benefit them with ideological support, financial support, and arms for their terrorist networks.

Obama has tried, unsuccessfully, to hide his disdain for Israel and its Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, but it is revealed regularly. Consider a recent example. In March Kerry told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that it was a mistake for the Israelis to raise the issue of recognition as a Jewish state. Seizing quickly on that, the Arab League issued a statement on March 26 that said, “We hold Israel entirely responsible for the lack of progress in the peace process and continuing tension in the Middle East. We express our absolute and decisive rejection to recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.”

The 1947 UN Resolution creating Israel describes it repeatedly as “a Jewish state.” But the Arab states have never accepted that resolution and have since refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state because that would nullify their fictional claim to a “right of return” of not just the Palestinian refugees from 1948-49, but their progeny of some 5 million. (Israel’s population is about 8 million, of which about 6 million are Jewish. If 5 million Palestinian Muslims were brought in, Israel would be an Islamic state, not a Jewish state.)

ANDREW BOSTOM:The 9/11 Museum Controversy and Sheikh Gameia: Recalling How Al-Azhar’s Then U.S. Emissary Reacted to the Jihad Carnage

The 9/11 Museum Controversy and Sheikh Gameia: Recalling How Al-Azhar’s Then U.S. Emissary Reacted to the Jihad Carnage

Controversy has erupted just weeks before the May 21, 2014 formal opening of the 9/11 Museum beneath the World Trade Center Plaza. The source of this imbroglio is a brief documentary film, “The Rise of Al Qaeda,” which apparently confirms that the mass murderous September 11, 2001 attacks were motivated by the ideology of jihad. As the New York Times’ Sharon Offerman observed on 4/23/14:

The documentary is not even seven minutes long, the exhibit just a small part of the museum. But it has over the last few weeks suddenly become a flash point in what has long been one of the most highly charged issues at the museum: how it should talk about Islam and Muslims.

What Offerman alludes to as a “flash point” is actually a threadbare effort—linking the irrefragably jihadist organization Al-Qaeda, and Islam’s institution of jihad war—to push back against the relentless campaign of doctrinal and historical negationism waged by Muslim and non-Muslim apologists for Islam.

Akbar Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University, who was interviewed by Offerman for her story, epitomizes this negationist trend in all its brazen hypocrisy. Ahmed opined,

The terrorists need to be condemned and remembered for what they did. But when you associate their religion with what they did, then you are automatically including, by association, one and a half billion people who had nothing to do with these actions and who ultimately the U.S. would not want to unnecessarily alienate.

(Moderate )Palestinian Minister Says Israel Conducts Medical Experiments on Prisoners

On April 24 and 25, 2014 the UN “Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People” organized a “United Nations Roundtable on Legal Aspects of the Question of Palestine” at the UN Office in Geneva.

The Committee was created by the U.N. General Assembly back in 1975 to implement the infamous Zionism-is-racism resolution. The resolution was rescinded 16 years later but the Committee is still in place, and operating year-round with 49 U.N. states and observers as members.

The UN Press release claimed the meeting was supposed to “discuss the legal status of Palestinian political prisoners and detainees” and “to consider the issue of Palestine’s admission to the United Nations as a non-Member Observer State.”

The opening session of the roundtable held on April 24 offered an insight into the main objective of this gathering: unmitigated demonization of the UN member state of Israel.

UN staff was only to happy to oblige. Michael Moller, Acting Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, said: “we are here today to build on numerous previous events” and he was “privileged to host again such gathering”. Moller read the statement on behalf of UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon who was “pleased to send greeting to all participants” and “thanked” the Committee for organizing the meeting. The Secretary-General was also “deeply troubled” by Israel’s continued house construction. Anders Kompass, who was representing the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner for Human Rights, was “delighted” to be there and extended “thanks” to the Committee for organizing the meeting.

Abdou Salam Diallo, the Senegalese Chairman of the Committee, put the blame for the failure of the peace process entirely on Israel.

Issa Qaraqe, Palestinian Minister for Prisoners’ Affairs represented the Palestinian Authority. His slanderous comments accused Israel of torturing and raping little children and subjecting Palestinian detainees to medical experiments. Violence, he declared, was the Palestinian right and intention. Here are some of his words (UN translator, original in Arabic):

ANNE BAYEFSKY:Secretary Kerry’s Willful Ignorance of the Lessons of the Holocaust

What do the allegation of “apartheid Israel” and Yom Hashoah, the annual commemoration of the Holocaust, have in common?

The former is the modern face of anti-Semitism. The latter is the reminder that anti-Semitism begets violence, horrible violence – crimes against humanity.

So when Secretary of State John Kerry suggested on April 25, 2014 just prior to Yom Hashoah, that Israel is on the verge of becoming an “apartheid state,” it was more than a libel. It was dangerous.

The effort to demonize the Jew before the Holocaust, and the effort to demonize Israel by those who seek to eradicate the Jewish state, are inextricably connected.

It makes no difference to the anti-Semite how preposterous the charge is. One-fifth of Israel’s citizens are Arab, enjoying more democratic rights and freedoms than in any Arab state. With Israeli Arabs elected to the Israeli parliament, appointed to the Israeli Supreme Court, and senior members of Israel’s foreign service, the charge is patently false.

The claim also stands in marked contrast to Palestinian insistence that no Jews will be allowed to settle in “Palestine.” The very idea of a Jew inhabiting Arab-claimed territories has been labeled the crime of “Judaization,” now a familiar term in U.N. parlance. Palestinian children’s textbooks, media, and public events of all kinds, are notoriously anti-Semitic.

The apartheid shoe fits in the Arab-Israeli conflict – on Judenrein Palestine.

“NILI” THE DRAMATIC TALE OF A JEWISH SPY RING IN PALESTINE DURING WORLD WAR ONE-

“NILI” is now available. You can see it directly via the following link:

http://zionism101.org/NewestVideo.aspx

Or log in at www.zionism101.org

“NILI” relates the dramatic tale of a Jewish spy ring in Palestine during World War I. Led by world-famous scientist Aaron Aaronsohn, this small group of men and women put their lives at risk to provide vital information to the British, which ultimately helped in the defeat of the Turks. As the deputy military secretary to Field Marshal Edmund Allenby said:

“It was very largely the daring work of young spies, most of them natives of Palestine, which enabled the brilliant Field Marshal to accomplish this undertaking so effectively.”

We encourage you to share information about “Zionism 101” with your friends, family, and co-workers, plus anyone else who is interested in learning about the most important development in modern Jewish history.

If you haven’t already, please watch our completed video courses.

If you would like to donate to Zionism 101, please visit http://zionism101.org/donate.aspx

We welcome questions and comments.

Sincerely,

David Isaac
Executive Director
Zionism101.org

IN DEFENSE OF DIANA WEST: J.R. NYQUIST ****

There is great confusion in our political discourse today. “Former” Communists in Russia are sounding more and more like conservatives. The same might be said of “former” Communists in the United States. Everyone talks a good anti-Communist line. After all, Communism is dead, and only exists (we are told) as an artifact of college life. Most people are focused on Global Warming, multiculturalism or homosexual rights. Nobody seems to notice that Global Warming, multiculturalism and homosexual rights are artifacts of the supposedly “dead” religion (some of whose acolytes have become “conservatives”). Well, there are a few of us – a small minority – who see what is happening. As a member of this minority I feel as if a cold wilderness has swallowed me up. I do not feel represented by the big foundations, or the conservative “smart set.” And so, when Diana West’s American Betrayal was published, and received favorable attention, I was excited and hopeful. But then, predictably, the celebrity pundits of the alternative Left (i.e., the Republican Right) began to attack Wests book, starting with David Horowitz and Ronald Radosh. There had to be, in the greater scheme of things, an attempt to kill the book. It was getting too much attention, and God knows what would have happened if somebody had not intervened.

It all began when Mr. Horowitz removed a positive review of West’s book from his Frontpage website, replacing it with a negative review by Ronald Radosh, titled McCarthy On Steroids. Baring his fangs, Radosh proved to be the Alternative Left’s junkyard dog. He alleged that West’s book was full of “yellow journalism conspiracy theories.” He described Mrs. West as Joseph McCarthy’s “heiress” and attacked her scholarship. It was, in fact, no review at all. It was a dishonest, poorly devised, hit-piece. Little wonder that Radosh was rhetorically impaled by historian M. Stanton Evans, who commented on Radosh’s “extensive” lack of knowledge “made the worse by the strange inventions with which the discourse [was] salted.” Evans wondered how such an egregious poseur could set up shop as an “Olympian arbiter” when he knew so little about the topic. Evans mused, “It is quite a puzzle.”

Here, indeed, we approach a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Here we have, from the website of a famous “conservative” (and former Marxist) pundit, a studied misrepresentation of a tremendously important book – a book that can open people’s eyes to the historical roots of our present malaise. Although the snarling poseur has been exposed as a drooling incompetent, there has been no apology or backtracking on the part of Mr. Horowitz. When offered a chance to moderate his position, Horowitz dug himself into a deeper hole. During a question and answer session at the Heritage Foundation, Horowitz was challenged on this issue by Dr. Sebastian Gorka. Below is a brief transcript of the exchange:

Sebastian Gorka: I’m with the FDD Foundation for Defense of Democracies. My father was put in prison for life by the Communists … and I like this idea that they [the Communists] lost in the 1960s but they won by stealth since then. From your presentation it seems clear that we are in a very small minority in terms of understanding the deep story. Maybe people are disturbed getting thrown off their health care … but to understand the backstory to where we are today, there are very few of us. Given your reputation in what you’ve accomplished, and the ten volumes of articles, it would seem very lacking in strategy to attack those on your own side. Can you talk about why you’ve taken somebody whose written what I think, as a Ph.D. who teaches at university, a historically important book such as [American Betrayal] and divided the Right yet again. If you have issues with Diana West’s technical expertise, then take her to task on that; but ad hominem attacks that destroy the unity of our camp will not make us stronger in 2016.

David Horowitz: … I am a very busy person … so I don’t monitor Frontpage…. An article appeared that was a review of Diana West’s book American Betrayal. It was an endorsement. I knew it was going to be read … as an endorsement from me. I looked at the book, actually Ron Radosh called me and alerted me … so I got the book off Kindle and I began reading it, and in my judgment it is a very very bad book and I see it as a threat to everything I have done, and Radosh has done, and … all the conservatives who have dredged up the information from the archives about Communist influence. But I don’t attack people on the Right. [So] I removed the review…. This book is a complete reinterpretation of the Second World War based on the presence of Soviet agents and Communists … and sympathizers, fellow travelers in the Roosevelt administration. And to inform Diana that I removed the review, because I didn’t want to be seen endorsing it, that if she needed to reply she could have as much space as she wanted. I actually had in mind … to have her debate Radosh. I’m a great believer in intellectual debate and dialogue. She rejected the offer and went on the attack. She called me a totalitarian, a commissar and a book-burner. So if you have a problem with this so-called ‘war,’ the war is all coming from her end….

If you remember anything from this controversy, at least remember Horowitz’s words: “But I don’t attack people on the Right.” How, then, does he explain publishing an all-out assault on Mrs. West’s reputation. He has personally said that Mrs. West’s scholarship is sloppy, that her book should never have been written. He called it “a very very bad book.” Everyone recognizes, as a matter of necessity, that people are obliged to defend themselves. And why, then, should Mrs. West be obliged – according to Mr. Horowitz’s insinuation – to defend her reputation on his website, on his terms? What egomaniac attacks a person’s integrity, blackens their reputation, dismisses their work, and expects them to produce a reply which will bring more readers and publicity to themselves? Naturally she could not accept Horowitz’s invitation to reply on frontpage. Furthermore, we have eyes to read the ungallant review of Mr. Radosh, the unscholarly poseur who fired the first shot in the so-called “war.” (In my view, this “war” was nothing but a bungled mugging in which the mugger was seriously injured by blows from the victim’s purse.) Even more egregious, the Radosh review was not written in the style of a gentleman; rather, it was a parade of gratuitous insults peppered with more than twenty falsehoods (as documented in Mrs. West’s reply, available on Amazon as The Rebuttal: Defending ‘American Betrayal’ From the Book-Burners). As for Diana West’s alleged ad hominem reply to Mr. Horowitz – if it has a snout and it oinks, the cognomen “pig” is not an ad hominem. It was perfectly reasonable for Mrs. West to satirize her assailants as metaphorical book-burners and totalitarians; for they used Communist rhetorical techniques to cover the tracks of Communist subversives – and to cover their own tracks. It doesn’t matter if Mr. Horowitz and Mr. Radosh are anti-Communists. It doesn’t matter what kind of Communists they are. It is strategy that counts, and strategy is how we should judge them. In the above-quoted exchange, Dr. Sebastian Gorka suggested that Horowitz was lacking in strategy because he was obstinately dividing an already attenuated anti-Left minority by attacking Mrs. West. We all know that Mr. Horowitz is not an idiot. If he did not intend to divide the enfeebled cadre, then why did he attack the lady’s book? Well, we can go back to the idea that he is an idiot, but let’s play the Devil’s Advocate for a few paragraphs. If the attack on West was done innocently, without any intention to divide the conservative Right, why was it done with so little regard for the truth? Aha! There is the telling point. The words of M. Stanton Evans, and the rebuttal of Mrs. West, reveal one invention after another by Professor Radosh, one blatant falsification after another endorsed by Mr. Horowitz. Anyone can click on the links above, go to the source material, and read.