Displaying posts published in

2016

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Georgetown’sAndrew Harrod: Jonathan Brown and a local imam put on a happy face on Islam to counter “Islamophobia” at a Presbyterian church in northern Virginia.

By on April 15th, 2016

The presentation “Islam: Fear over Knowledge” provides the “knowledge you need to combat Islamophobia,” stated Geneva Pope from the localInterfaith Communities for Dialogue on April 3 in an Annandale, Virginia, Presbyterian church. This biased introduction set the tone for a whitewashing of Islam before over 100 listeners by Georgetown University professor Jonathan Brownand Imam Zia Makhdoom in an event promoted by the Fairfax, Virginia, county government.

Makhdoom, whose Alexandria, Virginia, mosquehas featured various extremist affiliations, began the event proclaiming Islam a “message of peace, of brotherhood, and of equality for the entire humanity.” Christians in places like Egypt and Iraq “have lived there for centuries peaceably, as brothers and sisters,” although “conditions may have not have been perfect.” Numerous Middle Eastern Christians who have endured centuries as persecuted dhimmis under Muslim-majority rule refute his contentions (see here, here, here, and here).

“Taking one life is the equivalent of taking the life of the entire humanity” is a teaching “verbatim in the Quran,” Makhdoom stated with an oft-invoked reference to Quran 5:32. Yet, as is almost universal among Muslim apologists like him, his not so verbatim scriptural quotation ignored this verse’s exception forfitna, an Arabic word translated by the Muslim reformer Irshad Manji as “villainy in the land.” Sanctioned by the subsequent verse 5:33’s brutal death penalty, fitna invocations have justified violence against all kinds of Islam’s perceived opponents such as American troops in Afghanistan.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

To be kind is to be cruel, to be cruel is to be kind: David Goldman

By on April 15th, 2016

Just after the September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, I warned that radical Islam would horrify the West into submission. In Europe, it has taken a giant step towards success. Europe’s horror at the prospect of human suffering has made it supine. Sadly, the more the Europeans indulge in their humanitarian impulses, the more Muslims will suffer. To be kind is to be cruel.

The Daily Mail recently described an incident off the coast of Italy:

The 240ft Monica had been spotted in international waters during the night.

When Italian coastguard boats drew alongside, the crews were shocked to see men and women on board begin dangling the infants over the side.

The refugees – mostly Kurds and many said to be heading for Britain – calmed down only when they were assured they would not be turned away from Italy.

What kind of people threaten to murder their own babies? The normal response would be to arrest them and put them in prison for endangering children. Instead, the British newspaper reported, “The Archbishop of Catania, Luigi Bommarito, was at the dockside to greet the Monica in what he called ‘a gesture of solidarity’. He said: ‘I’m here to appeal to people not to close their hearts and doors to people trying to survive. We mustn’t forget that in the last century many immigrants also left Italy.’”

The Monica incident is multiplied ten thousand-fold at the diplomatic level. Turkey’s President and de facto dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan last October threatened European officials with 10,000 to 15,000 drowned migrants, according to minutes leaked to a Greek news site and widely reported by European mainstream media–with no official denial. Erdogan demanded 6 billion Euros up front and 3 billion Euros a year to stop the refugee flow, telling European officials, “We can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria anytime and we can put the refugees on buses, What will you do with the refugees if you don’t get a deal? Kill the refugees? the EU will be confronted with more than a dead boy on the shores of Turkey. There will be 10,000 or 15,000. How will you deal with that?”

Continue reading →
ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Ghetto: The Shared History of a Word The Jewish ghetto haunts sociologist Mitchell Duneier’s new history of the American one By Adam Kirsch

By on April 15th, 2016

Today most Americans would be surprised to learn that the original ghettos were inhabited by Jews.
That is the experience Mitchell Duneier relates in his new bookGhetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea, when it comes to teaching his own students at Princeton about the history of the ghetto. For the last 70 years, Duneier shows, the word “ghetto” has for Americans become exclusively associated with poor black neighborhoods, especially in big cities like New York and Chicago. Few people know that, for centuries before America even existed, Jews in many European cities were legally confined to walled neighborhoods known as ghettos. (“Ghetto” is the Italian word for “foundry”; the first Jewish enclave in Venice was located on the same island as a foundry, and the word came to refer to the neighborhood by extension.)

When it comes to understanding the black American ghetto, can we learn anything from the history of the European Jewish ghetto? It is a tricky question, which Duneier addresses carefully, since it seems to invite comparisons about who was more victimized and more resilient. Yet as he tells the story of the evolution of American thinking about the black ghetto—primarily through the lens of successive generations of academic sociologists, from Gunnar Myrdal to William Julius Wilson—the Jewish ghetto refuses to disappear. It haunts the subject like a ghost, raising questions that continue to define the way sociologists think about ghettos today.

Matters are complicated by the fact that, during the Holocaust, the word “ghetto” took on a very different freight than the one it had traditionally carried. Ghettos like the ones in Venice or Frankfurt were poor, isolated neighborhoods subject to discrimination and surveillance; but they were places where Jews lived and where their culture and civilization sometimes thrived. These ghettos had almost all disappeared by the 20th century, as European countries abolished official discrimination against Jews. It was the Nazis who brought the word back into common use when they created their own Jewish ghettos in occupied cities like Warsaw and Vilna. But the Nazi ghettos were not places for Jews to live; they were places for Jews to die of starvation and disease, or to await death in the gas chambers. The Warsaw Ghetto, in other words, had little in common with the Venice Ghetto except the name. As Duneier writes, “The Nazi ghetto was something entirely new.”

Continue reading →
BOOKS Comments turned off

Anti-Zionism Is Anti-Semitism. Get Over It. By Liel Leibovitz

By on April 15th, 2016

Recent campus debates teach us an important lesson about bigotry and how to deal with it
Is anti-Zionism any different from anti-Semitism? The question is probably the most accurate seismograph we’ve got to measure where one stands on the ever-tremorous political grounds we all walk when we talk about Israel. Not that there’s necessarily any right or wrong answer; civil, well-meaning people can make arguments on both ends. Yes, because Jews and Jewish life cannot be reduced to the national aspirations of the Jewish state. No, because anyone denying Jews, alone of all the world’s nations, their right of self-determination is by definition a hater. It’s not an altogether useless debate to have, but it’s not the debate we’re having.

The debate we’re having, true to our times, is both dumber and more malicious, and it was on display this month as at least two of our finest institutions of higher learning, Stanford and Oberlin, treated us to the intellectual equivalent of watching a tightrope walker trip and go splat on the asphalt. Out west, a member of the school’s student senate argued that it was not anti-Semitic to argue that Jews control the media, the banks, the government, and all other social institutions. And in the Ohio enclave of righteousness, several Jewish students published a letter in a student newspaper defending a disgraced professor who had posted similar allegations on her Facebook page about the Jews’ malevolent omnipotence.

Both pronouncements are worthy of consideration. Like any good work of modern art, they’re one part parody, peenging poseurship at its most delightful, and one part dirge, announcing the death of good, rational thought. At Stanford, the portentously named Gabriel Knight, a junior on the school’s student governing body, claimed that it was, like, totally cool to talk about how the Jews control the world. “Questioning these potential power dynamics, I think, is not anti-Semitism,” sprach Knight. “I think it’s a very valid discussion.”

Continue reading →
BOOKS Comments turned off

Vermont senators declare war on Israel by Richard Baehr see note please

By on April 15th, 2016

For their anti Israel bias the Senators get good grades from the Arab American Institute: rsk

Patrick Leahy on the Issues Rated +3 by AAI, indicating pro-Arab pro-Palestine voting record.Bernie Sanders on the Issues Rated +2 by AAI, indicating pro-Arab pro-Palestine voting record.

Vermont was the state that gave President Barack Obama his largest margin of victory in the 2012 election — 36%. While Gallup poll rates it the second most liberal state after Massachusetts, that rating seems erroneous, given that Massachusetts delivered Obama only a 23% margin despite having a significantly more diverse population than Vermont, which usually equates to higher vote support for Democrats (Vermont is 94% white, Massachusetts 76%). Massachusetts even elected a Republican governor in 2014, as it has done frequently in recent decades.

Today, Vermont seems to be the center of a new political development, testing the waters for how far the Left can go in the Democratic Party in advancing an anti-Zionist agenda. The push to separate Democrats from the traditional support for Israel is currently led by Vermont senators Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy.

Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, and a self-proclaimed socialist, is of course one of the two contenders for this year’s Democratic presidential nomination. He has had a string of successes in both caucuses and primaries, and has so far won 15 states and a few territories, and earned over 7 million votes. In 2008, Hillary Clinton lost the nomination to the younger, far more charismatic African-American newcomer, Obama. To lose state after state to a 74-year-old avowed socialist who calls for a revolution in politics is in some ways much more shocking than Clinton’s previous defeat. Assuming Clinton wins the nomination, still very likely due to her huge lead among Democratic super-delegates, and her far greater appeal than Sanders to minority votes, especially African-Americans, Sanders will have demonstrated either Clinton’s weakness as a candidate, particularly among younger voters, or demonstrated the power and appeal of his hard left message.

The New York primary is to be held on April 19. New York is the state with the largest number of Jews and the highest percentage Jewish population. Most Jewish New Yorkers, apart from Orthodox Jews, will cast their votes for Democrats.

One might expect that, like most politicians, Sanders would use the time before the primary to stroke that base of Jewish voters who will be a major component if he can pull off an upset in New York. Given his weakness in prior state contests among African-Americans and Hispanics, the traditionally liberal Jewish vote might seem made to order for Sanders. A fair number of liberal Jews (although probably a declining number each year) are pro-Israel.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Number of children used as human bombs by Boko Haram increasing: New report by Jim Kouri

By on April 15th, 2016

The number of children involved in ‘suicide’ attacks in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger has risen sharply over the past year, from four in 2014 to forty-four in 2015, according to a disturbing United Nations report released on Monday. More than 75 percent of the children involved in the attacks are kidnapped schoolgirls.

“Let us be clear: these children are victims, not perpetrators,” said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa. “Deceiving children and forcing them to carry out deadly acts has been one of the most horrific aspects of the violence in Nigeria and in neighboring countries.”

UNICEF says that the report — released two years after the abduction of over 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigeria, who were never found — shows alarming trends in four countries affected by Boko Haram over the past two years. The fact being ignored by many in the Obama administration and the media is that the group’s jihad has spread from Nigeria to its African neighbors such as Niger and Cameroon.

According to the Homeland Security News Wire, UNICEF report reveals that:

Between January 2014 and February 2016, Cameroon recorded the highest number of suicide attacks involving children (21), followed by Nigeria (17), and Chad (2).
Over the past two years, nearly 1 in 5 suicide bombers was a child and three quarters of these children were girls. Last year, children were used in 1 out of 2 attacks in Cameroon, 1 out of 8 in Chad, and 1 out of 7 in Nigeria.
Last year, for the first time, “suicide” bombing attacks in general spread beyond Nigeria’s borders. The frequency of all suicide bombings increased from 32 in 2014 to 151 last year. In 2015, 89 of these attacks were carried out in Nigeria, 39 in Cameroon, 16 in Chad, and 7 in Niger.

Continue reading →
BOOKS Comments turned off

ON THE GLAZOV SHOW: THE UNKNOWN: ISLAM’S 25 SCARS ON MY BODY

By on April 15th, 2016

On this new special edition of The Unknown, Anni Cyrus discusses Islam’s 25 Scars On My Body, sharing the nightmare she experienced as a young girl in the Islamic Gulag.

Don’t miss it.http://jamieglazov.com/2016/04/15/the-unknown-islams-25-scars-on-my-body/

And make sure to watch one of the most powerful episodes of The Unknown: To Be Raped Under Islam, in which Anni revealed the horror she endured under the Islamic Republic — and how she prevailed and is fighting back:

Continue reading →
ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Preview: Civic Affairs – A Detective Novel by Edward Cline

By on April 15th, 2016

Welcome to a preview of Civic Affairs, the 17th Cyrus Skeen detective novel, set in San Francisco in late May, 1929. The novel will be published in late April, and will be available on Kindle and as a print book. Enjoy.

Chapter 1: The Bum’s Rush

“My wife and I have come to request an unusual action to be taken by you, which, frankly, we hope you regard is in the realm of civic duty, Mr. Skeen.” The man paused, waiting to hear some response from Skeen. “We hope you are amenable to the idea, and respond with the utmost civility, courtesy and responsibility.”

Jubal Pickett sat in an armchair in front of Cyrus Skeen’s desk. Next to him sat his wife, Lucinda Pickett. The Pickets had arrived in his office a few minutes ago, without having called for an appointment. He did not know who they were and did not know what they wanted.

Skeen asked, his brow darkening in an ominous frown, “Who are you again? And what is it you want?”

Jubal Pickett was about half a foot shorter than Skeen. His oiled black hair was parted precisely in the middle. He was thin, as was his face, with a smidgen of a moustache crowning thin lips. Skeen observed that the man, whom he estimated to be in his forties, had that constant, pinched look around his eyes and nostrils as though everything he ever encountered was sour, displeased him, and probably caused him upset stomachs. Skeen had the wild thought that Mr. Jubal Pickett took castor oil with his coffee, regularly. His voice registered perhaps a tad above countertenor. He wore a plain gray suit, a vest, and a black bowtie. A gray derby was hooked over one knee.

His wife, Lucinda, was a prim, shriveled, almost emaciated woman with a prune face that reminded him of Olga Quarre, a creature he had met in April on a case. He guessed she was in her forties, as well, but it was hard to determine her age. She wore a Quakerish bonnet and a lacy, high neck collar that that did not quite encase her scrawny neck. She wore a bland brown jacket, an ankle-length brown skirt, and brown, old fashioned women’s shoes that were shin-high and which had to be laced up through a dozen eyelets. One claw-like hand was wrapped around the handle of an umbrella; the other held a shapeless cloth bag that was probably her purse. It had not rained in the city for days, and was not raining now. Some people carried umbrellas regardless of the weather.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Failure of Muslim Integration in the UK A harbinger of what to expect in the United States? Joseph Klein

By on April 14th, 2016

Europe’s open door policy to Muslim immigrants has utterly failed. Its tolerance of the intolerant tenets of Islamic law and practices under the banner of multiculturalism has also failed. Great Britain is a case in point. Muslims have created their own segregated communities by choice. Even pro-immigration leaders are admitting they were wrong in their optimism that Muslims would willingly integrate into British society over time.

As the saying goes, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” A former head of Great Britain’s Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), Trevor Phillips, came to that realization after doing a 180 degree turn on the issue of Muslim immigrant integration.

As a member of the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, he endorsed a report in 1997 that helped popularize the term “Islamophobia.” The report blamed widespread “anti-Muslim prejudice” among Great Britain’s majority population for Muslim immigrants’ “exclusion.” It placed the responsibility for resolving issues holding back “social inclusion” of Muslim immigrants on the British government. As the summary of the report states:

“The need for legal changes is clearly identified in the report. This, it is argued, will consolidate the changes in public opinion and popular understanding which are required and which are outlined throughout the pages of this report.”

Nearly two decades later, Mr. Phillips admitted that he “got almost everything wrong” on Muslim immigration.

“Liberal opinion in Britain has, for more than two decades, maintained that most Muslims are just like everyone else, but with more modest dress sense and more luxuriant facial hair; any differences would fade with time and contact,” Trevor Philips, who commissioned the poll for use in a TV documentary, wrote in a column entitled “An Inconvenient Truth.” His revealing column appeared in the Sunday Times on April 10th. “But thanks to the most detailed and comprehensive survey of British Muslim opinion yet conducted, we now know that just isn’t how it is,” he added.

The poll results dramatically evidence that a significant minority of Muslims living in Great Britain have core beliefs that are in direct opposition to the fundamental precepts of Western secular beliefs, including a pluralistic democracy and fundamental human rights such as freedom of expression, freedom of religion and equality of all people.

Continue reading →
BOOKS Comments turned off

Campus Lunacy, Part II The student “renaming” craze.Walter Williams

By on April 14th, 2016

Professor Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He recently wrote an article titled “The hypocrisy behind the student renaming craze.” Students, often with the blessing of faculty, have discovered that names for campus buildings and holidays do not always fit politically correct standards for race, class and sex.

Stanford students have demanded the renaming of buildings, malls and streets bearing the name of the recently canonized Junipero Serra, an 18th-century Franciscan priest who was often unkind to American Indians. Harvard Law School is getting rid of its seal because it bears the coat of arms of the Royalls, a slave-owning family. This renaming craze is widespread and includes dozens of colleges and universities, including Amherst, Georgetown, Princeton, Yale and the University of California, Berkeley. The students have decided that some politically incorrect people from centuries ago are bad. Other politically incorrect people are not quite so bad if they were at least sometimes liberal; their names can stay.

San Diego State University students are not demanding that the school eliminate its nickname, “Aztecs,” even though the Aztecs enslaved and slaughtered tens of thousands of people from tribes they conquered — often ripping out the hearts of living victims. Should UC Berkeley students and faculty demand the renaming of Warren Hall, named after California Attorney General Earl Warren, who instigated the wartime internment of tens of thousands of innocent Japanese-American citizens? UC Berkeley students and faculty might consider renaming their Cesar E. Chavez Student Center. Chavez sent his thug lieutenants down to California’s southern border to use violence to prevent job-seeking Mexican immigrants from entering the United States. President Woodrow Wilson was a racist who, among other racist acts, segregated civil service jobs. Should Princeton University rename its Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs plus rename its Woodrow Wilson fellowship program?

Continue reading →