Displaying posts published in

2016

Methodists Scramble for Peace and Justice – at Israel’s Expense by Susan Warner

The Palestinian Authority has no intention of recognizing Israel’s right to exist. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the Methodists are laboring under the false hope that “peace and justice” is possible if only Israel would be more accommodating.

The United Methodist Kairos Response Committee has adopted “apartheid” and boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) strategies, without considering how this may instead actually increase friction, strife and division.

The Methodists and other Christian groups with “peace and justice” interests such as the Presbyterian Church USA, United Church of Christ, Scottish Presbyterian Church and the members of the World Council of Churches need to accept some responsibility for aggravating the anti-Semitism energizing the popular imagination today.

The Methodist Church could instead consider actions of a kind designed to help rather than undermine peace — projects envisioned by a variety of goodhearted and resourceful people, who see opportunities where others clearly appear to be more interested in hurting Israel and the Jews than in actually helping the Palestinians.

Roughly 850 delegates from every corner of the world are currently preparing for the upcoming United Methodist General Conference (May 10-20, 2016). The quadrennial policy conference brings together representatives of 12.5 million members worldwide, including 7 million in the USA. During this ten-day event, delegates will consider a variety of church governance issues and a broad spectrum of social action proposals presented by member committees.

The United Methodist Kairos Response (UMKR) is one such committee. This group’s alleged mission, to promote “peace and justice” in Israel and Palestine, is sadly based on promoting the Palestinian cause — at Israel’s expense. Israel, according to the UMKR, appears to be the sole cause of Palestinian suffering.

Although the group accuses Israel of expanding “illegal settlements” in Arab territory, according to Elliott Abrams and Uri Sadot, writing in Foreign Policy, the accusation is totally untrue:

“To the question, ‘Is Israel vastly increasing the pace of settlement activity, making the establishment of a future Palestinian state less and less likely?’ the short answer, and the right answer, is no.

“Just as Israel was denounced far and wide for ‘settlement expansion,’ regular reports released by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics on settlement activity reveals is that Israel’s actual settlement construction pace has reached a historical low. Only 507 housing units were approved for construction by Netanyahu’s government in the first six months of 2014, a 71.9% decrease from the same period in 2013. About one-third of those is being built inside the major blocks it is understood Israel will keep in any final status agreement.

“For a population of more than 300,000 Israelis living in the West Bank, that pace of construction does not even allow for natural population growth, much less rapid expansion.

“It’s a lose-lose situation for Bibi, as nasty attacks from settler leaders coincide with those from prime ministers, foreign ministers, and presidents across the globe. The Israeli prime minister deserves credit, under these circumstances, for sticking to what he has said and appears to believe: Israel must build where it will stay, in Jerusalem and the major blocks, and it is foolish to waste resources in West Bank areas it will someday leave.

Free Speech on Trial in the Netherlands – Again by Robbie Travers

Freedom of speech is the ultimate liberal value — and it is the first value that people who wish to control us would take away.

If a court in a Western society decides to censor or punish Geert Wilders or others for non-violent speech, the court not only attacks the very humanistic values and liberal society we claim to hold dear; it brings us a step closer to totalitarianism. Even the idea of having an “acceptable” range of views is inherently totalitarian.

But what does one do if immigrants prefer not to assimilate? Europeans may be faced with a painful choice: What do they want more, the humanistic values of individual freedom or an Islamized Europe?

Censorship is not a path we should wish to take. While we may rightly fear those on the political right, we would do well to fear even more the autocratic thought police and censorship on the political left.

You are not truly a proponent of free speech unless you defend speech you dislike as fervently as speech you like.

There are many issues concerning the views of the Dutch MP, Geert Wilders, head of rapidly growing political party, the Freedom Party (Partij voor de Vrijheid, or PVV). Dutch prosecutors have charged Wilders with insulting deliberately a group of people because of their race and inciting hatred. Wilders’s trial focuses on a speech he gave, in which he asked a crowd of supports whether they wanted more or fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands. In another instance, Wilders is reported to have stated that The Hague should be “a city with fewer burdens and if possible fewer Moroccans.” Wilders admits to having made the remarks.

Selective Justice at The Hague by Srdja Trifkovic

Srdja Trifkovic discusses on Radio Sputnik International the sentencing of Dr. Radovan Karadzic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
Trifkovic: The verdict had been written well in advance of Karadzic’s arrest in 2008. All key points in the verdict had been prepared well in advance based on a previous sentence, against General [Radislav] Krstic, when the “Srebrenica genocide” was quasi-legally verified. This is the logical outcome of a politicized tribunal with politicized proceedings…

Sputnik: What are we going to see now, when it comes to the future of the Republika Srpska?

Trifkovic: We are going to see the use of this verdict as another building bloc in the political case for the dismantling of the Dayton Agreement, signed in the fall of 1995, which recognized the Republika Srpska as a semi-autonomous entity within Bosnia-Herzegovina. This will be used, together with some previous verdicts, as justification for a sustained attempt to delegitimize its existence and to claim that—having verified the guilt of Karadzic—it is now time to look for another arrangement for the future of Bosnia-Herzegovina as a more or less unitarized state—in which, by virtue of their members, the Muslims will have predominance.

Sputnik: Many people will probably think “well, this is the end of an era, the end of the story,” but it’s not going to be like that in your opinion?

Trifkovic: Not at all. The whole show at The Hague Tribunal has the task of providing legal justification for the decisions made by the Western powers in the 1990’s. Nobody at The Hague is looking at the circumstances that led to the civil war in Bosnia, the way in which the illegal referendum on February 29-March 1, 1992 resulted in the war; or at the role of the American Ambassador in Belgrade at that time, Warren Zimmermann, who flew to Sarajevo in March 1992 to dissuade Alija Izetbegovic, the Muslim leader, from accepting the plan put together by the European Union under Portugals’ presidency, the plan which could have prevented the war even before the first shot was fired. This is selective justice by a tribunal with a clear brief to prove Serbian guilt as retroactive justification for political decisions made at the time.

Indonesia Says 10 Nationals Held Hostage After Ship Hijacked Philippine militant group Abu Sayyaf suspected in ransom demand

JAKARTA, Indonesia—Indonesia’s foreign ministry said Tuesday that 10 Indonesian nationals are being held hostage after their ship was hijacked in Philippine waters.

The ministry said in a statement that the owner of the hijacked tug boat and coal barge has received two telephone calls purportedly from militant group Abu Sayyaf, which is demanding a ransom.

It doesn’t know exactly when the incident occurred but said the shipowner was first contacted on Saturday. The ministry’s statement referred to the hostage takers as pirates.

Abu Sayyaf, which is on U.S. and Philippine lists of terrorist organizations, is notorious for bombings, extortions and kidnappings for ransom in the volatile south of the Philippines. It has been weakened by years of U.S.-backed Philippine military offensives but remains a security threat.

FIDEL CASTRO TO BARACK : ” WE DON’T NEED THE EMPIRE TO GIVE US ANYTHING”

Retired leader Fidel Castro accused U.S. President Barack Obama of sweet-talking the Cuban people during his visit to the island last week and ignoring the accomplishments of Communist rule, in an opinion piece carried by all state-run media on Monday.

Obama’s visit was aimed at consolidating a detente between the once intractable Cold War enemies and the U.S. president said in a speech to the Cuban people that it was time for both nations to put the past behind them and face the future “as friends and as neighbors and as family, together.”

“One assumes that every one of us ran the risk of a heart attack listening to these words,” Castro said in his column, dismissing Obama’s comments as “honey-coated” and reminding Cubans of the many U.S. efforts to overthrow and weaken the Communist government.

Castro, 89, laced his opinion piece with nationalist sentiment and, bristling at Obama’s offer to help Cuba, said the country was able to produce the food and material riches it needs with the efforts of its people.

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL; MICHAEL ORDMAN

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS (NOT FOR THE BULLY, BASH AND DIVEST BASTARDS RSK)
One in four medical innovations has Israeli roots. (TY Dan & Hazel) Ruti Alon, co-chairman of this year’s IATI-Biomed Conference, highlighted that Israeli research is present in between 25% and 28% of the world’s successful biotech-based solutions. E.g. Exelon for Alzheimer’s, Doxil for cancer and Copaxone for Multiple Sclerosis. http://www.timesofisrael.com/one-in-four-life-science-innovations-has-israeli-roots-says-expert/
Treatment for Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension. (TY Dan) Israeli startup SoniVie has a novel system for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension, a progressive and fatal illness with no current cure. SoniVie has just successfully completed the first two procedures for its First In Human (FIH) multi-center clinical trial.
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-israeli-co-sonivie-completes-first-pah-catheter-procedures-1001108684

US approval for airway ventilation system. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Hospitech Respiration has received US FDA clearance for its AnapnoGuard 100 intubation system. AnapnoGuard is already CE2 cleared. More than 100 million patients annually require manual ventilation – the largest reason for admission into intensive care.
http://www.hospitech.co.il/solutions/ http://www.fdanews.com/articles/175431

Diagnosing Dry Eye syndrome. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s BioLight Life Sciences has completed a successful U.S. clinical study designed to assess the effectiveness of its TeaRx multi-assay test in evaluating tears’ components of patients suffering from dry eye syndrome (DES) as well as those of healthy subjects.
http://www.bio-light.co.il/blog/positive-second-clinical-study-results-for-its-tearx/

Diagnosing thyroid cancer. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Rosetta Genomics has announced that its RosettaGX Reveal diagnostic test for thyroid cancer is now approved for use in all 50 US states.
http://rosettagx.com/files/press-releases/14562724557a5bb93300ad4859286115fb6a48c232.pdf

The potential to save millions of lives. Israel’s MobileODT demonstrated its life-saving smartphone technology to detect cervical cancer at the Innovation Showcase at this year’s AIPAC Conference. Launched only last May it has been used 6000 times in 20 countries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3Cg4snYV6g

How to cope with stress. Researchers at Tel Aviv University have developed tests to highlight the different rates people recover from stress. The study can help individuals to train themselves to relax. It also may lead to a blood test that can diagnose undue stress and help with the recovery process.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/is-your-life-too-stressful-there-may-soon-be-a-blood-test-to-find-out/

Preventing hospital readmissions. A study by Israel’s EarlySense has shown that the unresolved respiratory problems of heart patients was the most significant cause of their readmission to hospital. EarlySense’s “under the mattress” device monitors a patient’s breathing amongst many other factors.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/heart-patients-and-hospitals-breathe-easier-with-israeli-sleep-tech/

New life for Gaza boy. (TY Hazel) 13 year-old Mohammed Abu Jazer from Gaza got a new lease on life when surgeons from Israel’s voluntary humanitarian organization Save a Child’s Heart in Holon implanted an Israeli pulmonary valve. The Medronic Melody device will improve blood flow and help him avoid future surgeries.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4768036,00.html

How Classical Education Can Make America Great Again By Abigail Clevenger

Abigail teaches middle-school history and Latin at a classical school in Alexandria, Virginia. She holds degrees from Hillsdale College (B.A.) and St. John’s College (M.A.).

A new book correctly diagnoses what’s much wrong with America’s progressive education model, but fails to grasp that the solution lies in a proven, classical approach to pedagogy.

“This book is so boring!”

As a middle school teacher, I hear the “b word” used flippantly, and nothing fills me with greater angst. I typically retort back with “only boring people are bored” and then launch into a passionate rant on how boredom is simply the sin of laziness, a failure to express gratitude and wonder towards the world around us.
My student who uttered this sentiment was simply struggling with a challenging book. His literature class is nowhere close to boring. The class engages in energetic discussions and works on creative projects to deepen their understanding of story and character. They all love literature, and as a signal of their enjoyment, frequent laughter can be heard floating down the hallways of our little school.

Still, the general attitude towards school as “boring” is pretty much accepted as the way of life for middle and high school students in America. At some point in their academic career, most kids will nurture low levels of quiet loathing towards schooling. In fact, most of us have been there ourselves.
At some point in their academic career, most kids will nurture low levels of quiet loathing towards schooling. In fact, most of us have been there ourselves.

Next to boredom, the other dominant attitude towards school is profound anxiety. High achieving students, especially in wealthy urban areas, may not admit that “school is boring,” but they are not driven by love for learning, either. What motivates high-achieving students is a deep fear of failure, the need to succeed, and the tyranny of the perfect high school resume.

Even supposedly good schools create numbing boredom and gnawing anxiety in their pupils. Kids are told to achieve. Achieve—to what end? Believe—in what? They sigh and churn on, ever more entrenched as cogs in the educational machine, their mind numbed by years of pointless information ingestion. Schools today are slowly killing the spirit of American youth. The average teenager is bored, apathetic, anxious, depressed, and disillusioned.

If we don’t change how schools educate our kids, American culture will wither away into lifeless dependence. We will be removed even farther from the ideal of a free, self-governing people who fully employ their minds, love life in all its complexity, and work creatively with gusto.
Schools on Trial

Fresh out of high school himself, twenty-year-old Nikhil Goyal explains the causes of boredom and stress in the freshly minted Schools on Trial: How Freedom and Creativity Can Fix Our Educational Malpractice. The book is well-researched and engaging. It will challenge anyone who accepts the status quo of the educational establishment or the mainstream education reform movement.

The Always Reliable United Nations By Elliott Abrams —

The United Nations, always fully reliable when it comes to hating Israel, has done it again. On March 14, I wrote at National Review Online about the coming selection at the U.N. Human Rights Council of a new “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.” The selection has now been made, and the honor — as it were — goes to a Canadian named Michael Lynk.

Now, in the U.N., these hate-Israel jobs are important. You cannot take the risk that a selectee will be fair or balanced or unbiased. So you go for someone like Lynk.

For example, Lynk is a member of the advisory board of the “Canadian–Palestinian Education Exchange” (CEPAL), which promotes the “Annual Israeli Apartheid Week.” Three days after 9/11, he blamed the attacks on “global inequalities” and “disregard by Western nations for the international rule of law.” He signed a 2009 statement condemning Israel for alleged “war crimes” in Gaza. At the Group of 78’s annual policy conference in 2009, he said, as summarized in the group’s report, that he “used to think the critical date in the Palestinian–Israeli conflict was 1967, the start of the occupation.” Now he thinks that “the solution to the problem must go back to 1948, the date of partition and the start of ethnic cleansing.” In other words, Israel should not exist and its mere existence is a harbinger of ethnic cleansing and other crimes.

The Stupid Psychopath Problem There is not a secret solution awaiting Trump. By Kevin D. Williamson

‘I alone can solve.”

Donald Trump, who can barely communicate in his native language, is the candidate of the social-media era, and the above sentiment — proffered to the electorate via Twitter in regard to Islamic terrorism — is in fact indicative of the breadth and depth of his thinking.

Trump is an example of the Stupid Psychopath Problem.

The Stupid Psychopath Problem does not plague stupid psychopaths exclusively, but they are most vulnerable to its seduction. I will leave it to the medical professionals to diagnose whatever it is that ails Trump psychiatrically; as for the stupid part, my belief is that you can learn a great deal about a person from the way he writes and speaks (my former students may recall that I am not an easy grader), and Trump’s use of language suggests very strongly that he is . . . very fortunate to have inherited a great deal of money and real estate. So dumb he thinks a manila folder is a Filipino contortionist. So dumb he thinks Tupac Shakur is a religious holiday for the “little short guys that wear yarmulkes” counting his money. Trump is like the ugly building in Chicago with his name on it: There’s a vacancy on the top floor.

The Stupid Psychopath Problem is the political distortion resulting from the fact that a great many people — some of them on barstools, some of them dangerously close to the levers of real power — believe that there are obvious, simple, straightforward solutions to complex problems such as the predations of the Islamic State or the woeful state of U.S. public finances, but that these solutions are not implemented because people in government are too soft, unwilling or unable to get tough and do what needs to be done.

Men such as Donald Trump, and a half a hundred million idiots just like him across the fruited plain, really believe that the reason we haven’t eliminated Islamic terrorism is that it never occurred to anybody in the federal government — including the people who run, e.g., the U.S. Special Operations Command — to get tough. These people imagine that the trained killers in the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, and the often ruthless men who oversee them in Washington, simply are not willing to do what it takes to win. What that means, these people have no idea, because they are unwilling to think very hard about these sorts of problems and generally have no experience themselves. Trump is famously a physical coward who lied to stay out of the military during the Vietnam war, and he knows nothing about foreign policy, national defense, or the workings of the military, which is why all we ever hear from him is “get tough” and “win.”

Is letting ISIS kill us our only hope of beating ISIS? Daniel Greenfield

If you’re keeping score, freeing Islamic terrorists from Gitmo does not play into the hands of ISIS. Neither does bringing Syrians, many of whom sympathize with Islamic terrorists, into our country. And aiding the Muslim Brotherhood parent organization of ISIS does not play into the Islamic group’s hands.

However if you use the words “Islamic terrorism” or even milder derivatives such as “radical Islamic terrorism”, you are playing into the hands of ISIS. If you call for closer law enforcement scrutiny of Muslim areas before they turn into Molenbeek style no-go zones or suggest ending the stream of new immigrant recruits to ISIS in San Bernardino, Paris or Brussels, you are also playing into the hands of ISIS.

And if you carpet bomb ISIS, destroy its headquarters and training camps, you’re just playing into its hands. According to Obama and his experts, who have wrecked the Middle East, what ISIS fears most is that we’ll ignore it and let it go about its business. And what it wants most is for us to utterly destroy it.

Tens of thousands of Muslim refugees make us safer. But using the words “Muslim terrorism” endangers us. The more Muslims we bring to America, the faster we’ll beat ISIS. As long as we don’t call it the Islamic State or ISIS or ISIL, but follow Secretary of State John Kerry’s lead in calling it Daesh.

Because terrorism has no religion. Even when it’s shouting, “Allahu Akbar”.