RUTHFULLY YOURS

Bill Clinton was ambiguous about the definition of “sex” and “is.” Barack Obama is uncertain about what the definition of “war” might be.

And wars are central to the duties of the man in the White House.

Whether or not we’re in a war depends on who you ask and on which day of the week you ask him. Secretary of State John Kerry said that bombing ISIS in two countries wasn’t a war. After the White House spokesman said it is a war, Kerry agreed that maybe it might be a war after all.

Forget about finding a strategy, this administration can’t even agree on whether the thing that it needs to find a strategy for is a war.

Democrats don’t like the “W” word. They bomb more countries than Republicans do, but they find a prettier name for it.

One of the first things that Obama did in Iraq was to change the name of the war. It was no longer Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was now Operation New Dawn. Even though there were 50,000 troops in Iraq, the combat mission was officially over. The 50,000 were renamed “Advise and Assist” brigades.

As John and Yoko said, the “W” word really could be over if you wanted it to be. Or pretended it was.

Obama bombed Libya to implement regime change, but no one called it a war. It was just one of those things where we dropped a lot of bombs on another country in coordination with rebels on the ground to help them take over that country. Definitely not a war. Possibly one of those “man-caused disasters.”

At least that was how Obama Inc. tried to rename terrorism in the early heady days of hope and change.

A compulsive need to avoid calling things what they are is an obvious form of denial. But when a politician at the head of a government begins behaving in that shifty way, it’s also deeply dishonest.

Rotherham abuse and our celebrity-obsessed police

Over the Rotherham abuse scandal there have been no arrests of the perpetrators. Neither has any action been instituted against anyone for misconduct in a public office. Could it be that this is seen in police circles as being of less interest than celebrity cases like Yewtree?

At last! The Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for South Yorkshire has quit. He was last seen being rushed out of an angry public meeting and driven off in a police car at high speed that was reminiscent of Starsky and Hutch.

Better late than never, although as far as I can see he must be either arrogant or stupid not to realise that his position had become totally untenable on the day the Rotherham abuse report was published. If he had gone immediately, as did the Leader of the Council, he would have retained a measure of public respect.

Under-reported was the news that the Chief Executive had fallen on his sword. He has done the proper thing and he deserves a measure of sympathy for having inherited a mess that pre-existed his appointment by many years. His fault was that he did not get a grip of it.

His opposite number at Rochdale inherited a similar situation, if much smaller. He acted quickly and a number of staff were required to continue their careers elsewhere. I suspect he was out of his depth. He was previously a Planner, so it is unlikely that he would have had much exposure to the vicious, back-stabbing politics that prevail in the Leader’s Office, at party group meetings and elsewhere behind the closed doors of the Town Hall.

So where does this leave the Chief Constable?

The Chief Constable of Wiltshire is facing an Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigation over mishandling of abuse cases over a period of about two years, not the 17 years and three inquiry reports at Rotherham.

David Haines murder means it’s time for military action

Nobody wants another war, but we cannot allow the fatigue of Afghanistan and Iraq to cloud our judgement in the face of such a bloodthirsty international threat as Islamic State. Isolationism is seductive, but we just can’t afford it

The brutal murder of British aid worker David Haines is yet another reminder of the barbarity of the Islamic State and should serve as a wakeup call for those who assume this problem will just fade away. The notion that the US and UK can sit back and make aid contributions to solve the problem has been proved wrong. We have a moral duty to intervene, and intervene we must.

Nobody wants another war, but we cannot allow the fatigue of Afghanistan and Iraq to cloud our judgement in the face of such a bloodthirsty international threat. The Islamic State has proven itself to be more dangerous, better financed and more bloodthirsty than al-Qaeda.

Through a sophisticated manipulation of social media, the organisation has managed to attract support from over 500 British citizens, establishing its own ‘state’ of evil, which cannot be ignored.

After the Syria intervention vote over the use of chemical weapons on children was sabotaged by the spineless Ed Miliband and, I am sad to say, some equally dishonourable Tory rebels, Britain has found itself struggling to act in the face of atrocities.

Our forefathers would be ashamed at what a passive country of inaction we have now become, turning a blind eye to international events instead of shaping them. To his credit, David Cameron has shown guts and conviction by taking on the evils of the Assad regime, but without Parliamentary support initiating meaningful action is near impossible.

Last week I helped to organise a Stand Up rally opposite Downing Street to raise awareness of the plight of Christians and other minorities in Iraq. The overwhelming messages was that we must stand tall for the persecuted, whatever the cost, and that the government must take action to halt the menace of Islamic State.

The event also heard reports from international religious leaders and senior politicians including Charles Tannock MEP, who issued a public demand for the protection of Assyrian Christians of Iraq.

For the first time in American statistical history, the majority of American adults are single. 124 million or 50.2% of Americans are single. Some will get married, but increasing numbers never will.

Demographically a population of single adults means the death of the Republican Party. It eliminates the possibility of libertarian and fiscally conservative policies. It leads inevitably to the welfare state.

Single people are less likely to have a support system that keeps them from becoming a public charge. Children born to single parents perform poorly in school and are more likely to engage in criminal behavior. A nation of single people will inevitably become a welfare state and a police state.

The statistics have always been known and the conclusions to be drawn from them are inescapable.

A lot of attention is being paid to the political consequences of the nation’s changing racial demographics, but it’s not a coincidence that the racial group that Republicans perform worst with is also the least likely to be married. While there are other factors in the mix, Republicans do better with married than unmarried black people.

The same is true of most other racial groups.

The latest Reuters poll shows that 36% of married Hispanics are planning to vote for a Democratic candidate in the upcoming midterm election and 28% are planning to vote for a Republican candidate. Among unmarried Hispanics, those numbers change to 42% Democratic and %15 Republican.

If Republicans want to start getting serious about the Hispanic vote, they might want to spend less time muttering about amnesty and more time thinking about where their strength with married voters lies.

Washington is an eclectic city. It is a metropolis that is thriving
economically and socially. Its architectural design is modeled after
Paris and it is certainly a city of cultural diversity and historically
interesting neighborhoods. Visually, the site of the monuments
reflecting against the panoramic backdrop of the Potomac River is
memorable for both visitors and native Washingtonians alike.

It is really a city like no other city in America. Although it may be
geographically small, Washington serves as the engine of government, an
anchor of global financial policy and representation, a seat of
institutionalized policymaking organizations, and as a growing center
for business, especially in high tech.

Tomorrow, the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannock Burn that gave Scotland freedom from the English, resident Scots aged 16 and older will go to the polls to determine whether Scotland will remain part of the United Kingdom, or if it will become independent.

(The British and Scottish crowns were reunited in 1603 with the ascension of James I as England’s king. James I was already, as James VI, King of Scotland. However, it would not be for another 100 years, until May 1, 1707, that the Act of Union brought open borders to Scotland.)

The Scots are an independent, loyal and stubborn people. As Niall Ferguson noted in Monday’s New York Times: “If you said to the average Glaswegian, ‘If you down that beer, you’ll get your head kicked in,’ he would react by draining his glass…and [then] telling the bartender, ‘Do it again.’” But they are also a thoughtful, creative and industrious people, having produced such luminaries as Adam Smith, David Hume, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns, Alexander Graham Bell, Andrew Carnegie, John Paul Jones and one of my favorite authors, the late George MacDonald Fraser.

In the campaign for independence, Alex Salmond and his Scottish National Party (SNP) have appealed to the emotions, using ideology and policy grievances as their principal tools. Mr. Salmond has phrased the “Yes” campaign as a struggle between Scotland and Westminster – the powerful against the weak, a lord (or laird) versus his servants. His arguments have been heavy on the romantic and nationalistic, but light in terms of responding to hard questions: What currency will Scotland use? How would the two countries divide declining revenues from oil production? Will large Scottish banking and insurance institutions, such as the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds, move out of Scotland as they have threatened to do? Where will the UK’s Trident nuclear subs be based if they are forced out of the Royal Naval base in Glasgow? What will be Scotland’s share of UK debt? If Scotland reneges on that debt, as Mr. Salmond has indicated he might, what will be the effect on the country’s credit rating? How will Edinburg finance the welfare state Scots have grown accustomed to, and which they want to continue and expand? How high will taxes have to be raised? What will be the impact on the economy? How will reserves for a central bank be funded?

Once again, Islam takes centre-stage, while the West watches anxiously on. From Brussels to Beijing, terrorists are still slaughtering civilians. Across Africa, from Libya to Nigeria and Kenya, fragile states are falling apart under the Islamist assault. In the Middle East, the Syrian civil war has now spread to Iraq and threatens to destabilise other states. Further East, Pakistan is under Taliban attack even before Afghanistan is evacuated by Nato. We are now seeing the results of President Obama’s premature withdrawal from Iraq, his encouragement of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, his irresolution in Syria, his appeasement of Iran and his failure more generally to grasp the scale of the Islamist challenge to the West. Elliott Abrams and Alexander Woolfson show how the world is paying a heavy price for a US administration that lacks a coherent strategy and a Nato that is not fit for purpose.

In Britain, the dispute between Michael Gove and Theresa May over the infiltration of schools by “extremists” has overshadowed the equally alarming consequences of such indoctrination. Hundreds of young Muslims emerge from the schools and mosques of cities such as Birmingham and Bradford, volunteer to fight for the Islamist cause in Syria, then return to bring jihad back to Britain. The attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels was the work of just such a jihadist from France, and it may only be a matter of time before horrors perpetrated in the name of Islam on the road to Damascus are repeated on the streets of London.

The world is still reeling from one of the periodic waves of fundamentalism that have expanded the Umma since the days of the prophet. Looking back to the first rise of Islam in the 7th century, Gibbon reflects on the secret of its success in Volume the Fifth of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: “Mahomet was alike instructed to preach and to fight, and the union of these opposite qualities, while it enhanced his merit, contributed to his success: the operation of force and persuasion, of enthusiasm and fear, continually acted on each other, till every barrier yielded to their irresistible power.” The perennial refusal of Islamic doctrine to distinguish between, let alone to separate, mosque and state, has hitherto been an almost insuperable obstacle to Muslim acceptance of modernity and integration into secular society; but it is also the secret weapon of jihad. The chimera of a new Caliphate lies behind the sudden collapse of Iraqi democracy, now unprotected by US troops, under the onslaught of an Islamist blitzkrieg.

Although Gibbon preferred Islam to Christianity, he did not disguise the former’s hostility to Judaism; in fact, he called Islam’s founder “the enemy of the Jews”. Compare this description with the latest Islamist video to go viral. Shot by ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), which has been responsible for the worst atrocities in Syria and now for the conquest of Mosul and Tikrit, the lyrics to this battle hymn include the following line: “Break the crosses and destroy the lineage of the grandsons of monkeys.” The reference to monkeys recalls the anti-Semitic depictions of Jews in Islamic scripture and tradition. The fact that one of the first European jihadists to return from Syria chose Jews as his first victims is not accidental. But it is also important not to overlook — as so many do — the new militancy directed at Christians of terrorist insurgents such as Boko Haram, al-Shabaab and ISIS. Elsewhere in this issue, Inna Lazareva reports on the fortunes of Christians in Bethlehem and Nazareth. Unlike the anti-Zionist narrative promoted by most of the churches, she finds a new realism among Christians about the state of Israel, which they see as their protector against Islamist persecution. Some are even ready to fight in the IDF.

FORWARDED BY JANET LEVY ROSS
BRITAIN ON WAY TO BECOMING JUDENFREI.

I actually never thought I would have to write an article like this, from the green and pleasant land of England.

However it is becoming truly frightening to be a Jew in UK. What is so remarkable is how quickly it all appears to have happened. One can now start to experience what it must have been like in parts of Europe under Nazi threat, when friends and neighbours
suddenly and without warning, turn on you because you are Jewish.

In the last week or so alone, we have seen the Tricycle Theatre banning the annual JEWISH film festival, which is one of the most important Jewish events of the calendar. The famous Edinburgh Fringe arts festival has also
banned Israeli connected theatre groups.

We have the Parliamentary Member from Bradford, a large town in Yorkshire, announcing his town to be “Israeli” free, as well as reading that a leading
Scottish Nationalist has apparently declared that an independent Scotland will be “Israeli free”. None of us are surely naïve enough to not understand that in practice it means Judenfrei, unless individual Jews renounce their
loyalty to Israel.

Leading Supermarkets have been invaded and ransacked by anti-Israel terrorists, threatening staff and customers. The supermarkets have succumbed to this terrorism, with rumours swirling around that they are soon to stop
selling all Israeli products. Only a day or two ago, a major supermarket in Central London, actually took all kosher products off the shelf. Think about that- all Jewish products banned, many not even from Israel at all.

Over 100,000 people marched through London recently in an anti Israel and anti Jewish orgy of sheer hatred.

I know people whose lifelong friends are putting the most hideous anti-Semitic rantings on their “Facebook” pages.

Our Jewish so called leaders have let us down. I personally haven’t seen nor read any leading member of our Jewish representative bodies, or Rabbis, standing up in public for our community .

This is not a good time to be a Jew in Britain. Apparently in France it is far worse.. We are being cowed and terrorised by home grown anti-Semites, and by imported oriental ones. [British “code” for muslims.]

Only in the last few days have some of the leading Newspaper columnists begun to wake up to the hatred they have themselves stirred up by their coverage of Gaza, replete with its ancient Jewish blood libel of deliberate
child sacrifice.

Natan Sharansky said recently that Europe is death to Jews, and he is so correct. History shows that anything can generate the hatred. If it wasn’t Gaza it would be something else.

Lloyd Levy
London
18 August 2014

Over-analysing and under-analysing — are these not the two sins of thought which we are all meant to avoid? Believing a sniffle is a presage of imminent death. Not bothering about a pain in the chest. Thinking all the problems of the world are easy to solve. Deciding that most things are too difficult to solve. Over-thinking and under-thinking are the Scylla and Charybdis between which we all navigate. But there is one challenge at this moment in particular which the world would do well to understand a bit better and over-think a bit less. Our future depends on it.

Michelle’s hashtag: Celebrity support warmed the heart but more than 200 Nigerian girls remain in captivity or have been sold as slaves
During the last few months the world has seen several varieties of the same evil stretch out, assert themselves and proliferate. Last April 276 schoolgirls were abducted in north-eastern Nigeria by the terrorist group Boko Haram. The translation of their name is usually given as “Western Education is Forbidden” but “Non-Muslim Teaching is Forbidden” is a more accurate rendering. The world ignored this atrocity until the human interest angle of the story spurred people to virtual action.

But no political leaders were keen to explain why the group had taken the girls. Few media outlets explained the simple but crucial detail that the terrorist group was made up of Islamic fundamentalists and that their captives were Christians. Fewer still mentioned that the formal Arabic name of Boko Haram is Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’Awati Wal-Jihad or “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad”. Or that, as one of the group’s leaders, Abubakar Shekau, explained for anyone who would listen, “This work that we are doing is not our work, it is Allah’s work, we are doing Allah’s work.”

A Twitter campaign was started. Numerous well-meaning celebrities including Michelle Obama and David Cameron posed with the Twitter hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. Months later and, with the exception of a few dozen who had managed to escape, the girls remained either in captivity or had been sold into slavery. And so the world’s attention moved on, touched but unenlightened.

A little while back, leaving the local “swimming hole” frequented by residents and summer tourists, I noticed a large group of dark-clad visitors sitting in a circle and solemnly keeping what appeared to be a meditative vigil. They had occupied a considerable space where others would normally pass on their way to one of the promontories leading to the river. They were obviously Muslims, probably an extended family, conspicuously observing the traditions of their native culture and, oblivious to their surroundings and the people who had to detour by an arduous route around them, preparing no doubt to face the Qiblah (direction to Mecca) and to devote themselves to prayer.

Just the other day, I had a similar experience. Since there are no facilities at the beach, swimmers often change out of their bathing suits into street clothes beside their cars, shielded by towels held by friends and intimates or strung between the open doors of their vehicles, an operation conducted in an atmosphere of courtesy defined by a mutual and studied disregard. I was assisting my wife in this delicate maneuver when three Muslim men emerged from the trail giving onto the parking lot. Soon they were trying to stare over and between the towels, mesmerized by the partially hidden lure of a woman in semi-undress. My wife had to enter the car and slide low into the front seat while I glared indignantly at the intruders. Then, as I was about to confront them — the odds were not in my favor, but so be it — they moved aside and, after a few moments, spread carpets on the grass margin a few yards away and ritually prostrated themselves in prayer — close enough that I had to be careful when backing the car out.

It was not violence, but it was a violation, a transgression of the norm, remarked by several others in the parking lot who were struck by so blatant an infringement of both common decency and shared space. These men clearly did not realize or, more likely, did not care that they were contravening the tacit agreement of reciprocal discretion that prevailed among us, whether friend or stranger. They were animated by a robust and incontestable sense of their own priority, a conviction of privilege that need not take into consideration the cultural usages and social expectations of those they had come to live among. The same goes for the band of votaries blocking a public route, heedless of the inconvenience caused.

Such behavior is patently different from the Muslim-inspired havoc and thuggery erupting in Canadian cities like Calgary, Toronto and Montreal, or in the municipal war zones of many European cities with sizeable Muslim populations. But it was nevertheless a visible presumption of specialness and of indifference to the conventions of ordinary civility.

Every immigrant group in this country has variously adapted to the heritage culture, integrating more or less seamlessly by the second generation. However, second-generation Muslims are increasingly being radicalized, some going off to fight with jihadist militias in the Middle East and Africa, others plotting terror attacks on the very country that has offered them freedom, health care, education and the opportunity to prosper.