RUTHFULLY YOURS

As Passover 2015 ends this coming weekend….another reminder of the importance of this wonderful holiday:
Millions, perhaps billions, of the world’s population still do not know the meaning of the towering festival of freedom and liberty known as Passover; a festival recognizing an event that has blessed the world for some 3,300 years.

The festival begins always on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Nissan. Jews and Christians know from the Bible the story of the Exodus and of the salvation of the Jewish people from centuries of slavery under the Egyptian pharaohs: This creation and deliverance of an entire nation.

Such a seminal event in humanity’s history became the foundation for freedom and liberty – created many centuries before democracy was first enunciated by Greek philosophers who nevertheless lived within a polytheistic society.

Many people know in varying degrees the Passover story and of the creation and birth of the Jewish people and of their undying faith in the One and Only God; invisible and indivisible.

Judaism has given the world monotheism in its purest and most undiluted nature. The Unity of God is what Jews have defended against all who attempted to suggest a plurality: even to enduring martyrdom.

The long suffering Jews under Egyptian bondage were led to freedom by the Jewish prophet, Moses, who brought them to their own very special and promised Land of Israel.

At a so-called Easter “prayer breakfast”, President Obama, as is his wont, took another swipe at Christians:

“On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that, as a Christian, I am supposed to love. And I have to say that sometimes, when I listen to less than loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned.”

Each to his own. I get concerned that, as the President was lecturing those Christians less perfect than him, some 150 students were slaughtered at Garissa University in Kenya for no other reason than that they were Christian. Had I been at that prayer breakfast, I would have walked out in protest.

Oh, wait, you can’t do that with the President of the United States. The joint’s in lockdown. So, okay, I’d be stuck in there until the 40-car motorcade had left and it’s safe to reopen the public thoroughfares. But I would have booed. Is it too much to expect freeborn Americans occasionally to show a little irritation at both the President’s condescension and, given that some of the oldest Christian communities on earth are currently being exterminated, his ghastly bad taste?

THIS COLUMN IS WORTH REVISITING. HOWARD JACOBSON’S NEW BOOK IS ENTITLED “J”…AND IT IS EXCELLENT.
It’s official: thanks to Stephen Hawking’s Israel boycott, anti-Semitism is no more.

Why is Israel alone of all offending countries to be boycotted? Perhaps because it’s that offending country which also just happens to be Jewish?

Gather round, everybody. I bear important news. Anti-Semitism no longer exists! Ring out, ye bells, the longest hatred has ceased to be. It’s kaput, kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, joined the bleedin’ choir invisible. It’s a stiff, ladies and gentlemen. An EX-PREJUDICE!

I first heard the news in a motion passed by the University and College Union declaring that criticism of Israel can “never” be anti-Semitic which, if “never” means “never”, is a guarantee that Jew-hating is over, because … Well, because it’s impossible to believe that an active anti-Semite wouldn’t – if only opportunistically – seek out somewhere to nestle in the manifold pleats of Israel-bashing, whether in generally diffuse anti-Zionism, or in more specific Boycott and Divestment Campaigns, Israeli Apartheid Weeks, End the Occupation movements and the like. Of course, you don’t have to hate Jews to hate Israel, but tell me that not a single Jew-hater finds the activity congenial, that criticising Israel can “never” be an expression of Jew-hating, not even when it takes the form of accusing Israeli soldiers of harvesting organs, then it follows that there’s no Jew-hating left.

Speaking from the White House President Obama announced:

“Today, the United States — together with our allies and partners — has reached a historic understanding with Iran, which, if fully implemented, will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

There was only “an understanding” – not even a piece of paper initialled by representatives of all the parties to the long and complex negotiations – that President Obama could wave to the waiting media setting out what that “understanding” was.

It did not take long to discover the reason explaining the absence of such an initialled document.

It turns out there are in fact two pieces of paper – one prepared by each side – but neither signed or agreed to by the other:

1. Parameters for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Nuclear Program

2. Iranian Fact Sheet on the Nuclear Negotiations which was only published in Farsi – but has been subsequently translated into English – for which there does not appear to be an official Iranian Government translation.

The first and simplest question one needs to ask is – in what language will the final authorised version of the agreement be actually framed?

A president with not much to show for his years in power, other than an album of photo ops, feels the need to remind history of his greatness. So why not strike a deal with Iran and spin surrender as triumph? But, hey, it’s Barack’s World and the rest of just live in it. At least for now.

Iran and the US are the best of friends now, with President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry upbeat about this alleged triumph of diplomacy, which they are trying hard to sell around the globe, starting with their own, quite unconvinced Congress. Many on Capitol Hill see it, correctly, as a dangerous agreement struck by a weakling with an outlaw state infamous for its deceit, terrorism and ceaseless, opportunistic aggression. In his narcissist’s drive to revel in the world’s admiration, an inept president has endangered us all.

To grasp the depth of Obama’s determined pursuit of folly – the charitable interpretation of what motivates him — let us recall US impotence during the Carter years, when the Tehran regime shredded every tenet of international law, attacked the US Embassy and took its diplomats hostage. The captives were released on the same day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated – a historical footnote which might have reminded Obama and Kerry that the mullahs put discretion above valour when confronted by resolve. They also seem to have overlooked that no apology, restitution, or contrition was ever made, offered or uttered.

““If that starts being questioned, that’s going to be a problem for our friends and that’s going to embolden our enemies. And it would be a foolish approach to take, and, you know, perhaps Mr. Walker, after he’s taken some time to bone up on foreign policy, will feel the same way.”

President Obama grinned in an NPR interview when asked about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request that Iran recognize the state of Israel in a final nuclear deal.

“Well, let me say this. It’s not that the idea of Iran recognizing Israel is unreasonable. It’s completely reasonable and that’s U.S. policy. And I’ve been very forceful in saying that our differences with Iran don’t change if we make sure that they don’t have a nuclear weapon. They’re still going to be financing Hezbollah. They’re still supporting Assad dropping barrel bombs on children. They are still sending arms to the Houthis in Yemen that have helped destabilize the country,” Obama said.

“There are obvious differences in how we are approaching fighting ISIL in Iraq, despite the fact that there’s a common enemy there. So there’s still going to be a whole host of differences between us and Iran, and one of the most profound ones is the vile, anti- Semitic statements that have often come out of the highest levels of the Iranian regime,” he continued.

As a deputy in the Russian parliament, Ilya Ponomarev cast last year’s sole vote against the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea. For this and other thought crimes, his face was plastered on a Moscow billboard labeling him a “national traitor” and his bank accounts were frozen. For most of the last year he has been living abroad.

But in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, a bucket of political revenge is never enough. So this week the parliament voted to strip Mr. Ponomarev of his parliamentary immunity. This effectively forces him into exile, since his immunity was the only thing that had been standing in the way of being hit with trumped up criminal charges of taking illicit payments. The tactic is a Kremlin favorite, which it has used against former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and dissident blogger Alexei Navalny.

Mixing shrewd diplomacy with defiance of U.N. resolutions, Iran has turned the negotiation on its head.

The announced framework for an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program has the potential to generate a seminal national debate. Advocates exult over the nuclear constraints it would impose on Iran. Critics question the verifiability of these constraints and their longer-term impact on regional and world stability. The historic significance of the agreement and indeed its sustainability depend on whether these emotions, valid by themselves, can be reconciled.

Debate regarding technical details of the deal has thus far inhibited the soul-searching necessary regarding its deeper implications. For 20 years, three presidents of both major parties proclaimed that an Iranian nuclear weapon was contrary to American and global interests—and that they were prepared to use force to prevent it. Yet negotiations that began 12 years ago as an international effort to prevent an Iranian capability to develop a nuclear arsenal are ending with an agreement that concedes this very capability, albeit short of its full capacity in the first 10 years.

He throws money and platitudes at the VA to cover up its deadly scandals.

Eight months ago, President Obama put on a grand show for the troops. Surrounded by new secretary of veterans affairs Bob McDonald, assorted politicians, military leaders, and a bevy of TV cameras, the commander-in-chief signed the “Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act.” He’s good at inking things. Obama condemned the “inexcusable conduct” at VA hospitals across the country (and under his own watch). He vowed to “do right by all who served under our proud flag.” He promised America’s veterans new “reform,” “resources,” “timely care,” and an end to the disgraceful disability backlog.

The bill he signed, in case you’d forgotten, included $10 billion in emergency funding to pay for veterans to go outside the chronically dysfunctional VA system if they are facing long wait times or live 40 miles or more from a VA facility, plus another $6.3 billion to set up 27 new clinics and hire doctors, nurses, and other medical staff. So, how’s it all working out? About as well as every other “success story” Obama has signed his name to: abysmally, ineffectually, and incompetently. Take Obama’s hyped plan to expand health-care access to those who live far from a VA facility.

Its bogus UVA rape story ignored the most basic rules of journalism. Rolling Stone screwed up. In most media scandals, it’s unfair to paint with such a broad brush. When Stephen Glass concocted his fables at The New Republic, he went to antiheroic lengths to conceal his deceptions from his colleagues. Janet Cooke, who famously won a Pulitzer for her Washington Post series about an eight-year-old heroin addict, “Jimmy’s World,” lied to her editors.

That’s not the case with Rolling Stone’s publication of “A Rape on Campus,” the story of the brutal gang rape of a student named “Jackie” at the University of Virginia that turned out to be false. Its failure was a group effort, from editor-in-chief Jann Wenner on down.
The best thing you can say about this fiasco is that there was little deliberate lying involved. According to an exhaustive report by the Columbia Journalism School, the article’s author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, and her editors didn’t purposefully publish falsehoods. Of course, this is faint praise.