RUTHFULLY YOURS

We’re getting a lesson in the politically correct way to conduct journalism in contemporary media, with a retraction and the admission by Rolling Stone magazine that it made up the story about gang rape at the University of Virginia. But nobody is paying a price. Not yet.

Rolling Stone — which is to journalism what rock, even with the roll, is to music — says it has its regrets, too bad, sorry and all that, but nobody will be punished.

The magazine published the sensational story last fall, high crimes beyond misdemeanors in the upper class, as if it had beaten the supermarket tabloids to a story (and no offense intended to those supermarket tabloids): A young woman had been gang-raped at a drunken party at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Tom Jefferson’s old school.

http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001525.html

CONTENTS

1. ISIS beheads a Hamas leader in Syria
2. Washington Post: With this deal “the Islamic republic will instantly become a threshold nuclear state”
3. Delusions about Iran’s moderate Islamic regime
4. In the words of Bill Clinton
5. Clinton’s North Korea, Obama’s Iran?
6. Israel proposes terms for a “more reasonable” Iran deal
7. “No online cameras allowed at nuclear sites: Zarif”
8. Air strikes and the media
9. John Oliver visits Moscow
10. Israeli model Gal Gadot to become new face of Gucci
11. “Iran is America’s new Iraq: With his nuclear deal, Obama is making as big a mistake in the Mideast as George W. Bush did” (By Ari Shavit, Politico, April 2, 2015)
12. “Why is Obama’s stance on Israel questioned by so many?” (By Jonathan Tobin, Commentary, April 6, 2015)

* Haaretz’s lead columnist slams Obama’s “march of folly” deal that will almost certainly see Iran going nuclear unless changed:

In recent weeks, President Barack Obama condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for appropriately opposing a Palestinian state because Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) has not only merged with the terrorist group Hamas, but also hasn’t met any of the conditions Mr. Netanyahu required in his 2009 conditional acceptance of Palestinian statehood, such as acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state, demilitarization, secure borders and a united Jerusalem.

In contrast, Mr. Obama has never condemned –– indeed, has even covered for –– Mr. Abbas for repeatedly opposing Israel’s very existence, even at the expense of establishing a Palestinian state. Consider:

PA maps, official stationery, atlases and two recent PA-commissioned Fatah emblems depict all Israel as ‘Palestine.’ Mr. Obama has never taken Mr. Abbas to task for the PA’s erasing Israeli statehood in this manner.

http://nsroundtable.org/as-we-see-it/reality-based-leadership/
The Canadian government does not share US President Obama’s enthusiasm over the interim deal reached with Iran Thursday (see below). Neither do we.Their Foreign Minister Rob Nicholson responded to the deal by warning that the Islamic regime may still be able to obtain a nuclear weapon even with the agreement. And of that, we have no doubt.Signing a deal with pathological liars – see “We Lied” – who also happen to be the #1 world sponsor of terrorism, is not only an exercise in futility, but downright idiotic. Someone once said: “History never looks like history when you are living through it.”Well, we in America are living through it, and history will not judge us kindly….National Security Roundtable

‘Skeptical’ Canada Won’t Lift its Iran Sanctions By Dalit Halevy, Ari Yashar

Canadian officials say they will only ease sanctions if Iran demilitarizes its nuclear program, noting Iran’s record isn’t trustworthy.The Canadian government has not shared US President Barack Obama’s enthusiasm over the deal reached with Iran over its nuclear program last Thursday, by which the Islamic regime continues enriching uranium at reduced levels in exchange for the removal of sanctions.

Israeli medical tech firm DreaMed Diabetes has struck a deal with Medtronic, the world’s biggest medical device company, to use its MD-Logic Artificial Pancreas algorithm in Medtronic’s insulin pumps.

Under the terms of the agreement, DreaMed Diabetes will receive undisclosed royalties from future sales of each device utilizing MD-Logic.

In addition, Medtronic has made a minority investment in DreaMed Diabetes of $2 million.

A distribution deal with a company like Medtronic is about as big a deal as a medical technology developer of any type could hope to achieve. The company had nearly $30 billion in revenue last year, and a market cap well over $100 million, and operates in more than 160 countries.

Returning after another hiatus, during which I finished the ninth Cyrus Skeen detective novel (The Circles of Odin), I decided not to try and recap all the bad news about Islam, Obama, Europe, and the decrepit state of the economy and of the government that came our way over the last two months, but instead to pen a spate of TV/movie reviews. These, too, however, are mostly bad news.

Keeper of the Flame

The only semi-bright spot in the reviews is one about Keeper of the Flame, a film I had for years wanted to see. I was intrigued by the title. I finally made the time to watch it on Amazon Instant Video. The Amazon Books entry on the novel by I.A.R. Wylie on which the film was based, features a book cover and a still from the movie, with stars Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. But because that listing does not allow one to “open the book to look inside,” I had no idea at the time if the cover hid the original novel, or if the book was a novelization of the film.

An Internet search for Wylie and the book turned up this explanation by an anonymous enthusiast on the Neglected Books site. It answered my question:

This Popular Library edition of I. A. R. Wylie’s 1942 novel, Keeper of the Flame , dates from the early 1960s. There are some remarkable titles to be found among the best-sellers, bodice-rippers, and dreck that Popular Library released in the late 1950s and early 1960s. I wrote about a few of them about a year ago in the post, Digging into the Popular Library at the Montana Valley Book Store.”

This is a particularly odd example. MGM purchased the film rights to Keeper of the Flame when the book was still unpublished. It was then published by Random House before the film was released, but subsequent runs featured a dust jacket with a still shot from the movie.

At least 100 Islamist teachers and teaching assistants implicated in last year’s “Trojan Horse” teaching scandal in Birmingham, England may face lifetime teaching bans.
Last June, the U.K.’s Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) found evidence that hardline Islamists had attempted to take control of some state schools. The report found that staff and headteachers felt “intimidated,” “undermined” or bullied into making changes they opposed.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=24671

WATCH: Mixing Passover traditions
Israel Hayom Insider host Steve Ganot speaks to Voice of Israel editor Ruthie Blum and MADEinISRAEL’s Elyssa Frank about the different ways in which Passover is celebrated in Israel and abroad • What does the celebration of freedom mean to you?

Why is this night different from all other nights?

This a question we ask aloud on the Seder night, a ritual meal celebrated by a whopping 85 percent of Jewish Israelis, secular and religious alike.

Israel Hayom editor Steve Ganot, Voice of Israel editor Ruthie Blum and MADEinISRAEL’s Elyssa Frank discuss the differences between Passover traditions in Israel and in the Diaspora, where two Seder nights are observed.

In his lengthy interview with Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, President Obama makes many statements about Israel’s security and how the proposed deal with Iran enhances it. These words from the interview are key:

I have to respect the fears that the Israeli people have,” he added, “and I understand that Prime Minister Netanyahu is expressing the deep-rooted concerns that a lot of the Israeli population feel about this, but what I can say to them is: Number one, this is our best bet by far to make sure Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon, and number two, what we will be doing even as we enter into this deal is sending a very clear message to the Iranians and to the entire region that if anybody messes with Israel, America will be there.

What does “messes with Israel” mean? No one has the slightest idea. The President unfortunately uses this kind of diction too often, dumbing down his rhetoric for some reason and leaving listeners confused.

“Both in America and in Israel, the liberal faith of too many Jews has imperiled the Jewish future. Needed is a serious, thoughtful, and authentically Jewish alternative.”In the end, for all Jews—religious and secular—the will to survive likely rests upon a belief that Jewish civilization is not only “my” civilization but a great civilization; that the Jewish people is not only my people but a special people, whose heritage, teachings, story, and achievements matter on a scale greater than what census numbers and square miles alone could ever rationally suggest. Jewish continuity is thus connected to an idea of Jewish exceptionalism: moral, political, intellectual, and, for some, divinely elected and divinely commanded. To be a Jew is to be a defender of a transcendent idea and a unique people, with the odds stacked against it but with history, faith, courage, pride, heroism, and sheer perseverance on its side: a purpose like no other.”

Compared with the bleaker moments in Jewish history—and woefully there are many—the present age of Jewish life offers many grounds for celebration and gratitude.

In America, Jews are free to build communities and educate their children, free to study and worship without fear, free to pursue the good life without discrimination or disadvantage. In Israel, Jews are sovereign: keepers of their own land, speakers of their own language, shapers of their own national destiny. In these two great centers of modern Jewish life, Jews have the dignity of liberty, and in Israel they enjoy the dignity of Jewish self-government. The old-world problems of the Jews—living in segregated conditions, burdened by humiliating legal restrictions, often impoverished and dispirited—are no longer Jewish problems on any mass scale. Most American Jews have means, and many are wealthy; the Jewish state is strong; and despite the faith-shaking trauma of the Holocaust and the faith-challenging seductions of modernity, many still believe that Jews have a unique purpose in the world.

But it would be misguided to indulge in heedless good feeling. The threats that Jews now face are real and possibly deadly