RUTHFULLY YOURS

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Ford Campbell, a teacher who has, for the past eight years, been teaching a graduate class, “Islamic Radicals & Terrorism,” at the Intermediate Unit 1 in California, PA, that appears to be the only one of its kind in the United States. He also teaches another graduate course called “Israel & Middle East Issues.” He has taught social studies for over 30 years and has a master’s degree in Biblical & Theological Studies from Luther Rice Seminary.

Frontpage: Ford Campbell, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Let’s begin by you telling us about the two graduate courses you are teaching.

Ford: Thanks Jamie.

The two classes are for school teachers to take so that they can further their certification with ACT 48 credits and continue to teach in PA. Both classes have been approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and I am thankful for the foresight and courage that the Department of Education has shown in approving it, especially with the rise in Islamic terrorism around the world.

FP: Tell us about your Islamic Radicals & Terrorism class. What are some of the readings you assign?

This week, the media broke news that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said, at an event attended by prospective Republican presidential candidate Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, that he does not believe President Barack Obama “loves America.” This isn’t news. Barack Obama doesn’t love free enterprise, believes founding philosophy was fatally flawed and sees the American people as rubes with antiquated religious and racist tendencies. Sure, we can all agree that Obama likely loves America’s scenery; perhaps he loves America, but doesn’t like her very much. But that’s not what Giuliani was talking about, and everyone knows it.

But in any case, Giuliani wasn’t the media’s true target. The true target was Walker.

After Israel’s victory in the Six Day War, the Israeli satirist Ephraim Kishon summed up the absurdity with the book “So Sorry We Won.” Israel’s greatest defeat was its victory. Thousands of years of persecution had taught Jews what to do when they lost. It had not taught what to do when they won.

Instead they had learned to feel guilty when they won as if there was something wrong with winning.

Last February, a divestment resolution went before the UCLA student government. Despite intense pressure, harassment and hate, Jewish students pushed back against it. And the resolution failed 7-5.

In November, a divestment vote came up again and UCLA Jewish student groups chose to sit it out.

Top U.S. officials sharpened efforts to undermine Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of his visit to Washington next week as tensions rose over his push to scuttle a possible nuclear deal with Iran.

At what U.S. officials say is a historic low point in relations between the longtime allies, the White House now sees Mr. Netanyahu as a serious threat to President Barack Obama ’s efforts to reach an agreement with Iran to limit its nuclear program.

U.S. officials are deliberately moving to undercut the Israeli leader’s influence ahead of his controversial speech to Congress next week by casting him as opposing any deal with Iran regardless of the terms.

Extremist Group Gains Appeal Well Beyond its Ultraconservative Roots

Islamic State’s ability to lure thousands of Westerners is unprecedented in modern history, and may be its scariest success. It is especially disturbing because the bulk of these women and men flocking to Syria are relative newcomers to Islamic observance—a sign the murderous group is gaining appeal well beyond its ultraconservative roots.

Either outright converts from Christianity or people raised in nonobservant or atheist households, they are often rebels in search of a flag of convenience, terrorism researchers say. In rejecting modern society and its rules, many of these newly baked jihadists have embraced Islamic State’s genocidal cult simply because it is the most obvious counterpoint to the West.

UCLA’s chapter of anti-Israel group Students for Justice in Palestine
(SJP) was enraged by a series of posters depicting Hamas executions
that appeared early Sunday around the school campus.

“These posters are a clear example of hate speech directed against
Students for Justice in Palestine, as well as supporters of
Palestinian freedom and equality,” SJP asserted in a statement. “They
rely on Islamophobic and anti-Arab tropes to paint Palestinians as
terrorists and to misrepresent Students for Justice in Palestine as
antisemitic.”