DANIEL GREENFIELD: THE WEEK THAT WAS
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ Friday Afternoon Roundup – Open Minds, Closed Hearts LEADER-SHIP The photo was retweeted by White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, who had just gotten through explaining that Obama deals with genocide on a case-by-case basis. The White House also uploaded it to its Flickr page and it’s probably on Instagram and projected above the White House with a laser on the sky. This situation room photo is serious. It means business. Susan Rice has changed out of her PJs and into her power suit like she’s ready to go on morning shows at any minute and blame a YouTube video for the whole thing.Iraq Crisis Worsens, Obama Deploys “Super-Serious” Situation Room Photo A MAN TOO BROADMINDED TO TAKE HIS OWN SIDE IN A QUARREL David, for all that he was the underdog, did not set out to be liked. He set out to win. He took an insanely dangerous risk with faith that a Higher Power would help him accomplish the impossible. Israel came closest to that in the Six Day War. It is not Goliath, but it has also forgotten how to be David. People are more likely to rally behind those with conviction in their own righteousness. The Muslim Goliath has carried off his imitation of David through the degree of his conviction. Israel and its defenders have strived for reasonableness over conviction, trying to prove their humanitarian credentials through a willingness to see both sides. But as the conflict has become a war of ideas, it has become clear that wars of ideas are no more won by those who see both sides than wars of force are won by those who fight on both sides. Making David Into Goliath MEMO TO J STREET “It makes no difference whether a Jew is pro-peace or pro-war, whether right-wing or left-wing… and serves as a target for the Jihad of the Islamic nation.” “Allah Akbar.” “Khaybbar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the Army of Mohammed will return.” Australian Muslim Leader: Also Kill Left-Wing Anti-War Jews THE GOOD FIGHT Mutuality makes morality and immorality in war self-regulating. If you firebomb someone else’s cities, someone else will firebomb your cities. If you want your prisoners of war to be treated well, you have to treat the prisoners you take equally well. Such mutuality is the only international agreement that truly matters. It takes humanitarian behavior out of the realm of idealism and into the realm of rational self-interest. It creates a direct and working program for rewards and punishments that does not rely on a League of Nations or United Nations. These rules would have made it impossible to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Had Churchill and FDR been bound by the belief that bombing enemy cities is genocide, Hitler and Tojo would have been free to implement real genocide in Europe and Asia. If the United States had not dropped 635,000 tons of bombs on North Korea, all of Korea would be living under the Kim Dynasty. Bringing Back the Good War J Street Accuses Jews of Racism, Blames Jews for Anti-Semitism – Shorter Ben Ami. “Bow to Obama and Kerry, you Jewish dogs.” Remember, it’s anti-Zionism… not anti-Semitism. That’s why they’re going after a guy with a Jewish grandfather Algerian Muslims Send Death Threats to Black Catholic Rapper b/c of Jewish Grandfather Obama Just Can’t Stop Joking About Being a Dictator RINSE, REPEAT Obama’s reactive strikes, complete with conditions, are a repetition of his Afghanistan policy which let the enemy set the terms while telling them exactly what we would do. Obama’s “Defensive” Airstrikes in Iraq New York Man Arrested for Playing Israeli Music Outside Mosque NYPD Investigating Criticism of Islamists as Hate Crime THREE STATE SOLUTION Abu Wisam is desperate to reach his family, but wants them out of Iraq as quickly as possible. “Iraq is a graveyard for us,” he said. He would be happy to bring them to Israel. “I wish Netanyahu would let us live here. I wish he would give the Yazidi some land.” “Take some from the Palestinians and give it to us,” he added, only half-jokingly. “I’d rather be a street cleaner here than go back there with the Islamists, who murder and butcher.” Yazidi Man in Israel Suggests Resettlement in Gaza, West Bank When is Plagiarism Okay? When a Liberal Plagiarizes a Conservative PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL Saying racist things didn’t get the “public intellectual enough attention so he moved on to bashing Israel. Why? Because news networks will put him on to do it. And Hill is a worthless media figure who stops existing once he’s no longer on CNN. That’s the dirty little secret of Dr. Marc Lamont Hill. If there’s a flood tomorrow, he’ll figure out a way to insert himself into the story and be on CNN squawking about how floods are wrong even though he knows nothing about floods. Public Intellectual/Human Joke Claims Not Allowing Hamas to Kill Israelis is Offensive Obama Complains That Those at the Top Have No Right to Complain IF ONLY HAMAS WERE A WABBIT Carter presumes that Hamas wants to lay down its weapons. There is no evidence of that whatsoever. Hamas is an acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement”. The goal of terrorist groups is to take power, not put down their weapons. Hamas deals with dissent by shooting dissenters. None of that suggests that weapons being put down is an endgame. Jimmy Carter: The Only Way to Fix Gaza is by Giving Hamas Everything It Wants Huma Abedin to Secret Service Agents: “Do You Know Who I Am?” APROPOS OF JEWS I know that Ann Coulter is just being Ann Coulter, namely a devoutly Christian politically incorrect anti-gay GOProud “Gay Icon”, fierce opponent of amnesty, supporter of giving green cards to anyone with a degree, Romney/Christie supporter and pal of Bill Maher opportunistically to the right of whoever… but this serves to illustrate a point… A basic test of anti-Semitism is when someone begins ranting about the Jews, apropos of nothing. I even agree with Coulter’s basic idea that there is more charity to be performed at home in the United States. But then a Coulter column about Ebola and the virtues of doing good at home turns into… If Dr. Brantly had practiced at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles and turned one single Hollywood power-broker to Christ, he would have done more good for the entire world than anything he could accomplish in a century spent in Liberia. Ebola kills only the body; the virus of spiritual bankruptcy and moral decadence spread by so many Hollywood movies infects the world. If he had provided health care for the uninsured editors, writers, videographers and pundits in Gotham and managed to open one set of eyes, he would have done more good than marinating himself in medieval diseases of the Third World. Of course, if Brantly had evangelized in New York City or Los Angeles, The New York Times would get upset and accuse him of anti-Semitism, until he swore — as the pope did — that you don’t have to be a Christian to go to heaven. I would ask what the Jews have to do with Ebola, but the metaphor is obvious and unoriginal. But what if all those Gothamites and Angelinos had instead infected Dr. Brantly with their spiritually bankrupt way of life, which Coulter claims is worse than Ebola? Coulter has places in New York and Los Angeles and was named GOProud’s “Gay Icon.” And some of her dates make Obama look like a religion man. It’s almost as if she herself has been infected. Maybe Dr. Brantly should have been trying to convert her to the right path? BECAUSE OBAMA “Why does the government want to support this group?” Mr. Gao said in Mandarin. “Why do they want to give them free money? We have to work from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.” “When you see them, it looks like they’re going to mug you,” Linda Chang, 50, said in Mandarin. “It makes me feel uncomfortable.” Asian-Americans Protest Bill de Blasio Housing Homeless in their Neighborhood THE ROUNDUP HAMASTANIC George Costanza claimed, among other things, that he ran from the house in order to “lead the way out.” Hamas claims it forces Gazans to stand on the roofs of targeted buildings to “lead the way out” of an “occupation.”… To Hamas, women and children are expendable as casualties. If the Israelis don’t kill them, Hamas will. And the Israelis have (wrongly) gone out of their way to avoid “civilian” Gazan casualties. They don’t seem to remember that but for the carpet- and fire-bombing of German and Japanese cities during WWII, the war might have gone on indefinitely. Aside from destroying an enemy’s capacity for making war, tens of thousands of Germans and Japanese civilians perished from Allied bombings. The purpose of those bombings was also to destroy the enemy’s morale and willingness to continue fighting. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cost nearly 150,000 Japanese civilian lives. But those bombings brought the Pacific War to an abrupt end. The alternative was to invade Japan with conventional forces and incur even more horrendous casualties on both sides. From Edward Cline at Rule of Reason GETTING REAL I think we need to have the people of the world focus like a laser on the table stakes of going beyond these little patty-cake wars we are currently diddling around with and look, really look, at what can actually happen with one little slip. What we need to do this is: “The Live Demo.” By this I mean we need to find a small island or deserted space somewhere on the planet and sacrifice it for the greater good by setting off one, just one, low-yield thermonuclear device in the atmosphere for all the world to see. Think of “The Live Demo” as a remedial educational moment for the entire world; a kind of slap upside the head coupled with a large shout out of: “PAY ATTENTION!” …from Gerard at American Digest EVIL IS AS EVIL DOES Anyone who switched to Al-Jazeera early on in the ground phase of Operation Protective Edge heard piercing shrieks of what sounded like “Shaul Aron.” Then followed a screenshot of the Facebook page of a handsome blue-eyed fellow. His name was plainly spelled out: Oron Shaul. His Bar Mitzvah photos too went on Al-Jazeera’s spine-chilling display. The number on Oron’s dog-tag became a weapon in Hamas’s psychological warfare. In the midst of what was billed as a humanitarian crisis of epic propositions, Hamas honchos found nothing better to occupy themselves with than to scour the social media and discover Oron’s Facebook uploads. Inflicting pain on one Israeli family – be it the Shauls, Goldins or any of us – obviously satisfies deep-seated sadistic zeal. It trumps doing something for numerous Gazan families. But helping ordinary families contradicts Hamas’s underlying strategy of using Gaza’s own civilians as human shields. …from Sarah Honig
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