RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Führer wanted to advance on the Soviet Union in a broad front—in full alliance with Warsaw. But the Poles declined.

Because of the recent centenary, debates over the origins of World War I rage with renewed vigor. By contrast, the origins of World War II seem ever more settled and uncontroversial. Adolf Hitler, so the conventional narrative runs, attacked Poland as the first step in the capture of lands to the east—thereby seizing the Lebensraum, or living space, that Germany supposedly required. He paused to neutralize France and Britain before moving on to an assault on the Soviet Union that was, in great part, ideologically motivated. Rolf-Dieter Müller’s refreshing new look at the events of 1939, “Enemy in the East,” does not challenge Hitler’s primary responsibility, to be sure, but it does compel us to look again at the whole origins story.

Mr. Müller, an accomplished German military historian, is the first specialist to explain Germany’s strategic planning in 1938-39 for a larger audience.

Reports suggest that the number of Islamic State (ISIS) recruits from Indonesia tripled to over 500 by the end of last year.

Home to the world’s largest Muslim population, Indonesia’s more than 200 million Muslims make up 13% of the world’s total Muslims. The nation’s history of extremist movements makes it a ripe location for ISIS recruits.

Wildan Mukholland was one of those recruits. He came from the same village in Indonesia as two militants convicted and executed for their role in the 2002 Bali terrorist bombings, which killed over 200 people and were carried out by Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaeda affiliate.

” The first decision should be to recognize that those who kill in Islam’s name are not mere violent extremists but fanatics driven by a specific religion’s zeal. And their victims are anything but random.”

And got it stomped on. Israel’s former ambassador to the United States on the president’s naiveté as peacemaker, blinders to terrorism, and alienation of allies.

Days after jihadi gunmen slaughtered 11 staffers of the Charlie Hebdo magazine and a policeman on January 7, hundreds of thousands of French people marched in solidarity against Islamic radicalism. Forty-four world leaders joined them, but not President Barack Obama. Neither did his attorney general at the time, Eric Holder, or Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, both of whom were in Paris that day. Other terrorists went on to murder four French Jews in a kosher market that they deliberately targeted. Yet Obama described the killers as “vicious zealots who … randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli.”

It is not surprising that former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren is now in the sights of the Obama Defenders Corps, a collection of U.S. administration officials, sycophantic journalists and other obsessive critics of Israel.

The former ambassador has revealed in his new book what most Israelis and many Americans now know to be true: that U.S. President Barack Obama abandoned Israel ever since the beginning of his term in 2009, and that the breach in U.S.-Israel relations is primarily his doing. In fact it was a deliberate policy to create distance between the United States and Israel, since the president was far more interested in making nice to the likes of Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Muslim world in general. Close U.S. ties with Israel presented an obstacle in Obama’s path toward accomplishing these other goals.

ADL’s Foxman slams Amb. Michael Oren for mentioning Obama’s Muslim upbringing in an essay about Obama’s views on the Muslim world

And the fallout continues from former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren’s comments about and analysis of U.S. President Barack Obama.

In a furious press release issued during the waning minutes of his reign, national director of the Anti-Defamation League Abe Foxman slammed Oren for expressing his views about U.S. President Barack Obama.