RUTHFULLY YOURS

In February 2015, President Obama hosted a three-day summit on “Countering Violent Extremism” (CVE) that featured a roll-out of three local programs in Boston, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles. This culminated CVE efforts by the Obama administration going back to 2011.

But just over a year from Obama’s White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism, the programs are now admittedly a complete failure — and publicly rejected by elements of the very communities they intend to serve.

Even at the time of the summit, the CVE programs had already been deemed a failure.

These programs are also a practical failure in preventing violent extremism. Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported on one Somali youth leader in Minneapolis associated with government-funded CVE programs who later attempted to join the Islamic State.

Remarkably, as the Obama CVE programs are in complete meltdown, Republican leaders such as Rep. Mike McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and conservative organizations such as the Heritage Foundation are openly embracing Obama’s CVE agenda — and even calling for its expansion.

Kicking off their CVE programs in December 2011, the administration issued the “White House Strategic Implementation Plan for Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism,” which articulated its goals:

To support our overarching goal of preventing violent extremists and their supporters from inspiring, radicalizing, financing, or recruiting individuals or groups in the United States to commit acts of violence, the Federal Government is focused on three core areas of activity: (1) enhancing engagement with and support to local communities that may be targeted by violent extremists; (2) building government and law enforcement expertise for preventing violent extremism; and (3) countering violent extremist propaganda while promoting our ideals. (pp. 1-2)

So Obama’s own stated goals fall into three areas: 1) engagement; 2) training; and 3) counter-propaganda. In each of these areas, Obama’s CVE programs have been a complete failure.

1. Engagement

Obama’s CVE policies were developed in 2011 specifically at the demand of U.S. Muslim groups. Now, the very same Islamic groups that demanded CVE are some of its loudest opponents. They claim that the administration is promoting “Islamophobia” through their programs.

Just a few months after the February 2015 White House Summit, Islamic groups in Boston — one of the cities selected for funding local CVE programs — were openly attacking those policies:

Islamic and civil rights groups in Boston and two other cities spoke out Thursday against a federal government initiative to counter violent extremism, saying it unfairly targets the nation’s Muslim communities.

“There’s no evidence programs like this are effective,” said Liza Behrendt, organizing consultant for Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-discrimination group. “It’s a federal program that singles out Muslim communities and reinforces false notions of the link between Islam and terrorism.”

BREAD OF AFFLICTION though it may be, to me, matzo has always been a treat. Of course, finding the right delivery system for this admittedly austere cracker—preferably one involving lots of butter—helps. I’m talking about matzo brei (“fried matzo” in Hebrew), a satisfying scramble of eggs and crumbled matzo that’s a favorite among Jews forgoing leavened bread during the Passover holiday (not to mention plenty of non-Jews who have passed through my kitchen). Traditionally breakfast fare, this hybrid of French toast and scrambled eggs makes an equally comforting lunch or supper.

There are those who insist that Jews fleeing Egypt invented fried matzo the minute they hit the Sinai, but in fact the dish only became popular around the turn of the last century, when automated production made matzo more affordable and therefore ripe for riffing. The preparation method varies from family to family. One version, probably Sephardic in origin, serves up the brei like a frittata, cut into wedges. Some cooks add vanilla, cinnamon and sugar to the egg mixture before cooking. Others take things in a savory direction by adding spices or fridge leftovers. Schmaltz lovers fry in chicken fat instead of butter, and those who prefer a softer brei use more water.

I like my matzo brei scrambled and eat it unadorned. My kids like theirs with maple syrup, and various relatives go in for a garnish of jam, or a sprinkling of sugar, or generous dollops of applesauce and sour cream. With so many options available, you can see why I keep a box of matzo in the cupboard year-round. CONTINUE AT SITE

On Monday, millions of children will ask their parents: Why is tonight different from all other nights of the year?

Children asking this question in Jewish homes around the world will be told that the Passover festival commemorates the liberation of their people from enslavement in Egypt and celebrates the civilization that emerged from that breakout into independence. Families gathered at an orchestrated meal—the Seder—will begin the story by tasting the bitterness of subjection, make their way through debates over interpretations of the event, and culminate in joyful and occasionally (after the designated four cups of wine) raucous song.

Nor will the ironies of liberation be lost on households that have laboriously prepared for its re-enactment: No one who observes the exacting requirements of Passover can doubt the disciplining challenges involved in attaining freedom.

Our family celebrates Passover with personal as well as historical freight. In the summer of 1940, my parents executed our flight from a fate worse than slavery at the hands of the Soviets and the Nazis who took turns subjugating the Romanian city we escaped, Czernowitz. Every successful getaway like ours was studded with improbabilities that some call miracles.

In his recital of the Passover Haggadah (the text that guides the Seder meal), my father put special emphasis on the phrase: “And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt—not by the hands of an angel, and not by the hands of a seraph, and not by the hands of a messenger, but the Holy One, blessed be he, himself, in his own glory and in his own person.” My father said we should likewise carry out life’s toughest tasks ourselves rather than entrust them to agents. He may have had in mind his own rescue of us and his failure to save members of his family who were murdered.

We were never to forget that our timely exit from Europe coincided with the loss of several million others like us. Every year, we include in our family reading of the Haggadah a postwar insert circulated by the Canadian Jewish Congress honoring both those who perished at the hands of the Nazis and those who went down fighting:

“On the first day of Passover the remnants in the Ghetto of Warsaw rose up against the adversary, even as in the days of Judah the Maccabee. ‘They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided’ [2 Samuel 1:23], and they brought redemption to the name of Israel through all the world.”

This tribute concludes with one of Maimonides’s 13 principles of faith: “I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the messiah—and though he tarry, yet I believe.” Participants in our Seder traditionally differ in how deeply they linger over the tarrying and how fervently over the belief.

Don’t be surprised if President Obama has an emotional attachment to that Neil Diamond/Barbra Streisand song, “You don’t bring me flowers anymore.”

A month ago, we were surprised that Cuba’s Raúl Castro did not greet President Obama at the airport. After all, they told us it was historic. It had not happened since President Coolidge visited Cuba in the late 1920s. Castro would have been the second leader in Cuban history to greet a U.S. president on Cuban soil. However, he stayed home doing something rather than showing up to make history. Maybe a pirated copy of The Mambo Kings was on Cuban TV that afternoon.

Well, it happened again. Another world leader was too busy to greet the president of the U.S. He was welcomed by Prince Faisal bin Bandar Al Saud, the governor of Riyadh.

Yes, our president is now greeted by governors. It does not get any more insulting than that. Maybe having Russian jets fly within 50 feet of U.S. warships is a very close second!

King Salman was not there to greet President Obama. However, he found time to greet other world leaders just last week:

Ahead of Mr Obama’s arrival, Saudi state television showed the king personally greeting senior officials from other Gulf nations arriving at the King Salman Air Base, the Associated Press reported.

Mustafa Alani, a security analyst at the Gulf Research Centre, said the Saudi decision not to dispatch a high-level delegation to greet the president was unusual and intended to send a clear message that they had little faith in him.

It is true that Saudi Arabia is angry over the redacted pages from the 9-11 report. Frankly, it’s a tough call, and I am willing to give President Bush and President Obama the benefit of the doubt here. After all, they have more information than I do. At the same time, President Obama could make a speech about the issue rather than let his critics dominate the coverage.

President Barack Obama’s trip to Saudi Arabia this week and pending legislation that would enable families of people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to sue the Gulf kingdom have prompted fresh calls to declassify 28 pages of a congressional report said to describe links between Saudi Arabia and the terrorists.

“If all of the information comes out and [the legislation] is passed we can move forward against the Saudis,” said Jim Kreindler, one of the lawyers representing the families of Sept. 11 victims.

Here’s some background on the 28 pages:

What are the 28 pages everyone keeps talking about?

Those are 28 classified pages of a 2002 Congressional investigation into the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. They concern Saudi Arabia’s possible role in the attacks and President George W. Bush ordered them sealed after the investigation concluded.

These 28 pages are 14 years old. Why are we talking about them now?

Family members of 9/11 victims have pursued a legal effort to sue the Saudi government over the attacks, alleging it had provided some manner of support for the 19 men who hijacked the planes.

These kinds of lawsuits are generally precluded by U.S. law but Congress is weighing legislation that could allow them. The Obama administration has been lobbying hard against the legislation.

In addition, the U.S. relationship with the Gulf kingdom, a long-time ally, has been strained in recent years. In a March interview with the Atlantic, Mr. Obama complained about Gulf Arab allies’ unwillingness to carry their own weight in regional issues. Asked whether Saudi Arabia was a friend to him, he said, “it’s complicated.”

Mr. Obama traveled to Saudia Arabia earlier this week for a summit of Gulf countries.

Saudi Arabia has long said that support for the hijackers didn’t come directly from the government. In 2003 the government called for the report to be declassified. CONTINUE AT SITE