Displaying posts published in

2016

The Age Editor Andrew Holden : “Israeli deaths don’t sell papers” see note please

Melbourne’s newspaper “The Age” is part of a stable of Aussie journals that are really down under in their bashing and bias on Israel. The Editor met with a Jewish community group….rsk

More than 100 members of the community, among them Peter Kohn, flocked to the JCCV plenum on Monday night as Age editor Andrew Holden sought to defend his paper’s coverage of Israel.

LIKE a cautious tourist on safari, Andrew Holden, editor-in-chief of The Age, initially kept his distance from the elephant in the room – in a 16-minute address to the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) plenum on Monday night, he avoided all mention of Jews and Israel.

Perhaps anticipating his audience’s inevitable questions on a widely perceived anti-Israel bias at The Age, he deliberately focused his speech on social issues important to his readers – same-sex marriage, end-of-life ethics and homelessness.

But then came the questions from members of the community – and the elephant lumbered in for a close-up. For the next 40 minutes, Holden responded to stiff questioning from more than 100 attendees over his newspaper’s treatment of Israel.

The editor batted away an opener by J-Air radio commentator Michael Burd – whether he thought Jews were “naive” enough to believe The Age is objective on Israel while it has, according to Burd, pro-Palestinian activists on its editorial staff. “There is no group-think or mindset within The Age or The Sydney Morning Herald that says we are anti-Israel,” declared Holden. “Let me say categorically The Age has never doubted Israel’s right to exist.”

Peter Smith Obama’s Islamic Fairytale

Eight years ago, the current US president’s supporters were given to describing him as the smartest thing since the microchip, a mind of such insight and acuity all the world’s problems would soon be solved. His inability to read and understand the Koran is further proof to the contrary
The American President’s speech at the Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque on February 3 was yet another exercise in countering the made-up malady of Islamophobia. Credit where credit is due, President Obama puts the case with conviction. Some right-wingers on the fringe think that this comes from him being a covert Muslim. However, it is much more likely – in having a Muslim father and then stepfather – that his view of Islam is drawn from his own personal experiences, which may well have been amiable.

To wit, when it comes to Islam he concocts his own insular narrative. He gives every impression of being blinkered, unread and self-absorbed. Call me a Democrat lackey, if you will, but I like this explanation better than thinking he is practicing taqiyya, like one of those unctuous imams that troll around compliant media outlets. After all, he is the US Commander in Chief. That he would knowingly deceive the American public about his true religious faith during these troubling times is unthinkable. Is it not?

Let me present some evidence of his disengagement from Islam to back my point. First he has no idea what the word ‘Islam’ means.

Sanders may have won 22% more votes than Hillary, but Hillary gets more delegates By Thomas Lifson Huh????

Hey, Sanders kids, relax. The fix is in.

Politico reports the delegate count arising out of the New Hampshire vote.

Among the 712 superdelegates, Hillary had a 45-to-1 margin a few months ago, in the 80% the Associated Press was able to reach to survey.

Blood Libeling at Vassar Jonathan Marks

Last week, I reported on the appearance at Vassar College, co-sponsored by their Jewish Studies program, of Jasbir Puar, a Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at Rutgers University. As I noted then, Puar accuses Israel of deliberately maiming Palestinians, rather than killing them, out of some combination of cruelty and greed. At that time, I did not have a record of the speech, which took place last Wednesday. But members of Fairness to Israel, a group of Vassar alums and parents organized to counter the propagandizing that passes for academic discourse about Israel at Vassar, were present and recorded and transcribed Puar’s talk. Assuming the accuracy of the transcript, Puar did not disappoint.

Much of it was evidently incomprehensible. Here is a sample, a part of her description of her project “How Palestine Matters”: “How Palestine Matters situates the geopolitical that has been obliviated in the resurrection of the ecological and the geographical in emergent fields of new materialisms and anthropocene studies.”

North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un Had Military Chief Executed: South Officials by Stella Kim See note please

All in a day’s work for Little Kim….Las April he ordered the execution of of 15 Officials and a defense minister….rsk
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has executed one of his top military chiefs for corruption and other charges, various South Korean officials said Wednesday.

“(Army General) Ri Yong-Gil stopped appearing at important functions and I am getting multiple confirmations from diversified North Korean sources that Ri has been executed,” a South Korean assemblyman told NBC News.

South Korean news agency Yonhap reported the killing citing a source “familiar with North Korean affairs.”

And The Associated Press quoted an unnamed South Korean official as saying that Ri’s execution was part of Kim’s effort to bolster his grip on power.

Other charges Ri faced before his execution were abusing his power and forming a clique, the official said.

Related: Senate Votes to Block North Korea’s Nuclear Ambitions

The execution of Ri, chief of the North Korean military’s general staff, would be the latest in a series of killings, purges and dismissals since Kim took power in late 2011.

Details about North Korea’s opaque government are notoriously difficult for outsiders to get, even national governments, and South Korean officials have a spotty record of tracking developments in North Korea.

Turkey’s Haunted Border with Syria by Burak Bekdil

Erdogan and his prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, are now paying the price for their miscalculated Islamist aspirations to install a Muslim Brotherhood type of Sunni regime in Syria in place of the non-Sunni Assad regime. Assad, with Russia’s help, has become somewhat untouchable, and has never been so safe and secure since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. By contrast, the Turks now face a multitude of threats on both sides of an apocalyptic border.

“With the Middle East ravaged by religious radicalism and sectarianism, the European Union and the United States can’t afford the Turkish government’s brutal military efforts against the Kurds or its undemocratic war on academics and journalists. Only a secular, democratic Turkey that can provide a regional bulwark against radical groups will bring stability to both the Middle East and Europe. As Mr. Erdogan seeks to eliminate all opposition and create a single-party regime, the European Union and the United States must cease their policy of appeasement and ineffectual disapproval and frankly inform him that this is a dead end.” — Behlul Ozkan, assistant professor at Istanbul’s Marmara University, writing in the New York Times.

Six years ago, Turkey’s official narrative over its leaders’ Kodak-moment exchanges of pleasantries with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus promised the creation of a Muslim bloc resembling the European Union. Border controls would disappear, trade would flourish, armies would carry out joint exercises, and Turks and Syrians on both sides of the border would live happily ever after. Instead, six years later, blood is flowing on both sides of the 900 kilometer border.

Let no child be left unconfused: Wesley Pruden

Mae West, the famous philosopher of the boudoir, would hardly believe her fortune today. “So many men,” she once complained, “so little time.” She was the kind of girl who set out to “climb the ladder of success, wrong by wrong.”
Now there’s such an abundance of choices in that even Mae would be overwhelmed. The educationists are taking inventory of what’s available and finding a sexual proclivity to suit every taste. They’re encouraging children to take stock and if they don’t like what they’ve got, not despair. Sex, like global warming, is always changing.

Typical of the search is a school in the English seaside resort of Brighton, a favorite of the politicians, leading the way. The kids at Blatchington Mill School were assigned, as part of their homework, to choose from a list of 23 terms to describe their “gender.” (Even the English, like their American cousins, no longer understand that “gender” is none of your business unless you’re a noun in pursuit of a hot pronoun.)

Threats to Jewish Students and Double Standards at UC Berkeley

After years of urging the University of California Board of Regents to take a strong stand against campus antisemitism, the regents will soon be issuing a statement that will hopefully address the problem in a meaningful way.

But, as regent Bonnie Reiss eloquently stated at the board’s November meeting, the hostile climate for Jewish students will not change unless UC chancellors act immediately and respond to threats and intimidation directed against Jewish students in the same way they would — and should — if Muslim, African American, Latino, or gay students were being targeted.

If only UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks would heed this plea.

Last October, Berkeley’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) held an anti-Israel demonstration in the center of the campus. After almost an hour of speeches attacking Israel, the SJP leader took the microphone and began chanting, “Intifada, intifada, we support the intifada!” This is the same as chanting, “Violence and murder, violence and murder, we support violence and murder against Jews!” The SJP leader riled up the crowd, encouraging them to repeat his terrorist threat against Jews. The scene was chilling, especially for Jewish students.

One Jewish student named Nathaniel, who had come to support a peaceful pro-Israel rally at the same time and place, was shocked — and afraid — when he heard the SJP’s leader call for violence against Jews. Holding an Israeli flag and a sign supporting Israel, Nathaniel was suddenly confronted by an SJP supporter who told him that he should be ashamed as a Jew to support Israel, and accused Nathaniel of being a “child murderer.”

Aghast at these accusations, Nathaniel was nevertheless determined to reply constructively and peacefully. Before he could, the SJP supporter told him to “f–k off,” stating that Nathaniel “disgusted” him. He demanded that Nathaniel leave the rally.

The military’s malaise Defense policy run by the White House is faulty By Jed Babbin – –

There’s a cloud of malaise worthy of Jimmy Carter that has settled over the nation’s military. The man who should be able to clear away the cloud, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, won’t be able to do anything about it.

The causes of this malaise are plainly evident, lying by the side of the political road like burned-out cars. They are the accumulated wreckage of seven years of failed policies, indecision and inaction.

Begin with President Obama’s strategy that called for American troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by now. Later, it was supposed to be by the end of 2016. As of two weeks ago, our military leaders had reportedly given up on Mr. Obama’s strategy to pull out of Afghanistan and were predicting that we would have to have troops there indefinitely — for decades to come at least — if the Kabul government was to have any chance of surviving rapid overthrow by the Taliban.

The military has no appetite for more decades of nation-building wars, nor should it. Having compounded President George W. Bush’s mistakes in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama evidently intends to kick that can down the road so that his successor will have to deal with it. Which leaves the military — from the grunts on the ground to the generals in the Pentagon — wondering what their mission in Afghanistan is and whether anyone cares if they succeed. The same is true for Syria and Iraq.

On Jan. 20, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joe Dunford said that Russian airstrikes have stabilized the Bashar Assad regime in Syria. What that means is that Russia — and its ally, Iran — have won the war in Syria. Those two nations have struck out at the anti-Assad forces, not the Islamic State, or ISIS. The accompanying failures of desultory U.S. airstrikes to destroy ISIS and Saudi and other Arab forces to evict Mr. Assad combine to leave our military wondering what they are trying to accomplish and how anyone plans for them to succeed.

Who Influences Hillary Clinton on Israel?By Alex Grobman, Ph.D.

Assessing the influence that Jewish associates, advisors, and relatives have on Presidential candidates is complicated. Just being Jewish does not mean automatically understanding the issues confronting Israel and world Jewry. It surely does not mean the politicians’ advisors will be supportive of Israel or effective advocates for the Jewish state.

All too often, Jewish voters believe that if Jews are involved in a candidate’s campaign, this will benefit our people. History has painfully shown this is to be a false assumption.

Hillary Clinton’s anti-Israel advisors, including Sidney Blumenthal, Sandy Berger, Anne Marie Slaughter, and former US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Pickering, have been the subject of discussion within the Jewish community. Michael Oren’s description of Mrs. Clinton’s condescending behavior toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and her view that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria are the impediment to peace, speak volumes about her feelings towards Israel and her failure to understand why this conflict remains unresolved.

Mrs. Clinton’s views are also influenced by her husband. In an impromptu discussion with a pro-Arab Palestinian activist in Iowa in September 2014, former President Bill Clinton was overheard asserting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “not the man” to sign a peace agreement. Mr. Clinton agreed with the activist that “if we don’t force him to have peace, we won’t have peace.”