“Why do so many Israelis hate Breaking the Silence?” asks Haggai Matar, an Israeli journalist and political activist, who focuses on the Israeli “occupation.” According to the group’s website, Breaking the Silence (BtS) “is an organization of veteran combatants who have served in the Israeli military since the start of the Second Intifada and have taken it upon themselves to expose the Israeli public to the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories. We endeavor to stimulate public debate about the price paid for a reality in which young soldiers face a civilian population on a daily basis, and are engaged in the control of that population’s everyday life. Our work aims to bring an end to the occupation.” [1]
Matar sees BtS as a legitimate way to force Israelis to examine their country’s role in Judea and Samaria. For that reason, BtS should not be under relentless attack from the Israeli Right, since the organization does not support BDS, advocate Israeli officers be tried for war crimes, urge Israelis to refuse army service, or excuse Arab violence. Only Israeli political leaders should be held accountable, he opines. [2]
When BtS published a 242 page report in May 2015 entitled “This is How We Fought in Gaza, Soldiers testimonies and photographs from Operation Protective Edge ̋ (2014),” it generated major headlines in Britain, the U.S. and much of Europe. The headline in The Washington Post set the negative tone against Israel: “New report details how Israeli soldiers killed civilians in Gaza: “There were no rules.” [3]
The report contained testimonies from more than 60 IDF active and reserve soldiers who participated in Operation “Protective Edge” in the Gaza Strip, approximately a quarter of whom are officers ranging up to the rank of major.
A key allegation:
“The guiding military principle of ‘minimum risk to our forces, even at the cost of harming innocent civilians,’alongside efforts to deter and intimidate the Palestinians, led to massive and unprecedented harm to the population and the civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. Policymakers could have predicted these results prior to the operation and were surely aware of them throughout.” [4]
Questions about BtS tactics, methodology, motivations, funding, disproportionate media attention, and the certainty of future clashes with Hamas, ensures continued scrutiny and discussion.
Gerald M. Steinberg, the founder and president of NGO Monitor, that documents questionable funding and actions of many NGO’s that support Israel-based reporters, explained how BtS operates. With approximately 10 staff members, BtS issues unnamed and unsubstantiated testimonies from Israeli soldiers claiming to have witnessed fellow soldiers committing war crimes. BtS representatives repeat these false allegations in European parliaments, before UN agencies, on university campuses and in the media. [5] They even met with members of the White House National Security Council at the offices of an American nonprofit in the capital. A separate meeting was held with senior officials at the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. [6]
The renowned eighteenth century French writer Voltaire is remembered for many of his observations. Among them is: “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.”
Indeed, questions are indispensable to us as we go about our daily lives.
Think about it. We greet each other by asking variations of the question, “How are you?” This is true of virtually all societies and in all languages. When strangers seek entry into our homes we ask variations of, “Who’s there?” and “What do you want?”
Discussions, whether at work or in social situations, are centered around the give and take of questions and answers.
While there may well be an infinite number of questions that can be asked, all questions ultimately seek the answers to six fundamental questions—no matter what the subject is: Who, What, Where, Why, When, and How?
Lawyers who are examining witnesses in court are cautioned to never ask questions that they don’t already know the answers to.
To question authority is to challenge authority—this is the underlying principle of democracies, namely that citizens have the right to challenge their leaders by questioning their qualifications, and their decisions and actions, and consequently hold them accountable.
It is certainly indisputable that many of our politicians from both parties need to be challenged and made accountable!
The educational process in which teachers administer innumerable exams to students and use Socratic methods to help students learn and expand their knowledge and understanding continues to be a set of time-tested instructional techniques. The questions may take the form of multiple choice or essays, but no matter the format of the exam, the process is not unlike the way that the escape artist Harry Houdini managed to unshackle himself and escape from various locked restraints. Reportedly Harry taught himself how to regurgitate keys he had swallowed before being shackled. He then used those keys to open the locks.
China under President Xi is finding it easy to give the U.S. under President Obama a swift boot in the rear.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has succeeded in gaining more power than any Chinese leader has had since that nation suffered the upheavals of the 1970s. His success in doing so is attributable to Barack Obama and Sun Tzu.
To say that eight years of Obama’s — and Hillary Clinton’s — foreign policy has left power vacuums around the world is a rather important cliché. China, under Xi, is one of the two powers most eager to fill them, the other being Putin’s Russia. Putin is more impatient than Xi, seizing the Crimea and a good chunk of Ukraine, venturing into Syria, in partnership with Iran, to ensure the survival of Assad’s terrorist regime.
Xi is more patient, clearly more successful and less eager to show off before the news cameras. He’s satisfied with building China’s enormous military to achieve greater capabilities and to install the ability to speed-lace the South China Sea. As Sun Tzu wrote about 2300 years ago, the greatest general is he who can win the battle without fighting. That’s the strategy behind Xi’s ability to fill the vacuum left by Obama.
Good hiking boots replace eyelets with rounded hooks which laces can be looped around to put the boots on and get going much faster than the wearer could otherwise. By building miniature military bases around a dominant quadrangle in the South China Sea, on territory that’s not China’s but is also claimed by a variety of nations, Xi is putting in the rounded hooks that will soon enable China to lace up and control that sea.
The second officer to be tried in the Baltimore prosecutions arising out of Freddie Gray’s death in April 2015 has been acquitted in a bench trial.
The case against the officer, Edward Nero, was among the most inane brought by the incompetent, race-baiting prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby. As we’ve previously recounted, Gray died after suffering a severe spinal injury while in custody in a police van. Back in December, the first officer to be tried, William G. Porter, got a mistrial after a hung jury and is to be retried later this year.
Gray, a 25-year-old African-American man with a police record involving drug charges and minor crimes, was apprehended while acting suspiciously during a police crackdown in a high-crime area of Baltimore. Upon making eye contact with an officer he fled, leading police to chase and stop him, and to find a knife on his person. He was thus arrested. When placed in the van, Gray was wildly uncooperative with police, who did not belt him into his seat.
The medical examiner eventually concluded that police had no intent to harm Gray, and that the deceased would not have sustained his severe injury had he remained in the prone position in which police attempted to place him.Prosecutors reportedly concealed from the defense at Porter’s trial not only that Gray was found to be under the influence of narcotics at the time of his arrest, but also that he had claimed prior back injuries in the weeks prior to his death. Yet Mosby proceeded to charge six police officers, notwithstanding that a competent homicide investigation was not close to being completed. In a demagogic speech announcing the charges, she claimed she was responding to mob cries of “no justice, no peace.”
Mosby’s office has floated the notion that police lacked probable cause to arrest Gray and, therefore (the dangerously incorrect theory goes), that his arrest amounted to unlawful imprisonment.
For what it’s worth, I believe there was probable cause to arrest Gray. Probable cause is a non-technical assessment of the totality of the circumstances as they would be judged by an experienced police officer. Someone in a high-crime area who runs away as if he has just committed a crime upon seeing a police officer has engaged in suspicious behavior justifying an investigative stop; if, upon the frisk that routinely occurs during such a stop, the suspect is found to have a weapon that is illegal under municipal law (as lawyers for the police officers have contended this knife was), that is sufficient cause to make an arrest.
Nevertheless, even if we concede for argument’s sake that the facts of Gray’s arrest may not have risen to probable cause, the law allows the police to make a good-faith mistake of law without being guilty of the crime of false imprisonment.
The media loves to go to places like Birmingham, Newark or Flint and then try to indict us for our “apathy” and for not caring about how badly the people live. But the Democrats they keep electing are why they live that way.
Here’s what’s happening in Birmingham.
Birmingham City Council President Johnathan Austin, fresh from winning re-election to the council’s highest office, this week ordered that all four members of the council who voted against him must move out of their offices at City Hall, and into other spaces on the corridor.
But at least two council members – Kim Rafferty and Valerie Abbott – balked.
“I respectfully decline the reassignment of my office and staff,” Rafferty wrote to Austin Wednesday.
Abbott wrote that she will “not cooperate.”
And all of a sudden duly elected council members were squatters. In their own offices
This morning Council Administrator Cheryl Kidd, on orders from Austin, began the process of having the council members moved out. Kidd sought Public Works employees to physically clear out the offices so Austin supporters Sheila Tyson and Lashunda Scales could move into the spaces deemed more prestigious. Councilmen Jay Roberson and William Parker also were asked move, meaning that all council members would have to move, whether they wanted to or not.
The mayor’s office, which has authority over Public Works and other city workers – including the locksmith – instructed employees to disregard the order.
Austin has his own history of trouble with the law.
Birmingham City Council President Johnathan Austin was arrested on a DUI charge in Mountain Brook, authorities confirmed.
The arrest happened Dec. 19, 2014 but was not made public until today. Mountain Brook police officials said all arrest reports are furnished to the media upon request, and no one requested the report until today.
Birmingham is doing well under this type of management.
A few years ago, the Syrian American Council sponsored a tour by Sheik Mohammad Rateb al-Nabulsi who had called for the murder of all the Jews.
“Allah has made it a duty to fight them and wage Jihad against them,” he had declared. It was not “permissible under Sharia” to make peace with the Jews. Instead the Muslims were obligated to “fight them, to shed their blood, and wage perpetual Jihad.”
“All the Jewish people are combatant,” he ranted. They could all be killed.
The chairman of the SAC, Hussam Ayloush described Jews as “Zionazis” and refused to condemn Hamas.
Despite that, HIAS allied with the Syrian American Council in its push for the migration of Syrian Muslims. And the ADL chose to invite Omar Hossino of the SAC to speak at its National Leadership Summit.
The ADL is no stranger to strange alliances with Islamist groups through its Interfaith Coalition on Mosques which harasses local communities into acceding to the construction of Islamist institutions. But under its new leader Jonathan Greenblatt, an Obama associate, the organization has also been opening doors to anti-Israel groups across the spectrum.
When radical anti-Israel hate group If Not Now targeted Jewish charities for harassment, the ADL told the stealth BDS group, which has ties to open BDS group JVP, that “there’s more we agree on than disagree on.” A follow up ADL tweet was openly directed at a JVP member. Greenblatt’s press release described members of the anti-Israel hate group as “part of our community” and claimed once again that If Not Now and ADL shared the “same goal”. No less a figure on the left than Eric Yoffie, a persistent critic of Israel, had written that, “IfNotNow is not a pro-Israel organization. It does not deserve the support of left-leaning American Jews.” And that was coming from a J Street supporter.
With his March 25 Facebook post, CAIR’s Dawud Walid cemented his position as a preacher of hate and radicalism. He has already become known to many Muslims as an extreme figure, who bullies anyone who disagrees with him, maligns dissidents, harasses gay Muslims, and foments anti-American sentiments.
It is beyond denial to ignore the fact that Muslims such as Walid are leading radicalizers of American Muslims, and their efforts are dedicated to pushing vulnerable Muslims away from integration and reform against Islamist movements.
Dawud Walid is the longtime executive director of Michigan’s chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). His Twitter profile currently bills him as a “human rights advocate and political blogger,” and his blog sells him as an imam who lectures on topics such as how to maintain your manners when dealing with hostile people (the irony of this will soon become abundantly clear), and how to address the very real problem of anti-Black racism within the Muslim community.
To anyone less familiar with Walid’s persona — especially online — he could easily appear to be a champion of civil rights, a man before his time in terms of addressing intra-community problems as well as hostilities between Muslims and non-Muslims. A more comprehensive review of his activities — or even just a cursory review of his commentary on one of the days he has chosen to lash out at anyone with whom he disagrees — reveals a more sinister, even cruel, man. Further, his true aim seems not to be civil discourse and community cohesion, but rather the furtherance of a particularly malignant, vicious strain of political Islam.
I have seen Walid demean, bully, and slander other Muslims for years. He has actively worked to silence discussion of critical issues, by working to shut down screenings of Honor Diaries, a film addressing the mistreatment of women in the name of “honor” culture; instigating online hate campaigns and witch hunts against dissidents — women in particular — and pushing Muslims to ostracize those with whom he disagrees. While this behavior has been abhorrent and has brought significant distress and even potential danger to those he has targeted, the broader public has paid little mind.
His most recent tirade on social media, however, may — and should — wake the public up to his real agenda.
On March 25 of this year, Walid took to social media to talk about the Easter holiday, and how he believes Muslims should treat Christians on this day. Rather than using the opportunity to offer best wishes to Christians and condemn the slaughter of Christians by ISIS, Walid urged Muslims not to “encourage infidels” by wishing Christians a “Happy Easter.” His comments were at best hateful, at worst incitement. His is the kind of thinking that leads to attacks such as the one against Christians in Pakistan over Easter, or when the Pakistani Taliban blew up a crowd of mostly women and children of Ahmadi Muslims, or when Asad Shah, stabbed 30 times, was assassinated recently in his store in Glasgow, Scotland, for wishing Christians a Happy Easter.
“I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. I call upon them to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people meet these goals, they will be able to reach agreements with Israel, Egypt and Jordan on security and other arrangements for independence.” — President George W. Bush, 2002.
The Palestinians do not have “a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty,” but erasing Israel evidently remains their goal.
Rather than offering the Palestinians no-cost recognition, the French should demand a few changes first.
The French government seems to be falling over itself to undo its craven vote in favor of a UNESCO resolution accusing Israel — referred to as the “Occupying Power” in Jerusalem — of destroying historic structures on the Temple Mount:
Prime Minister Manuel Valls apologized. “This UNESCO resolution contains unfortunate, clumsy wording that offends and unquestionably should have been avoided, as should the vote.”
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve apologized. [I do] “not take a supportive view of the text.” The resolution “should not have been adopted” and “was not written as it should have been.”
President François Hollande apologized. [The vote was] “unfortunate,” and, “I would like to guarantee that the French position on the question of Jerusalem has not changed… I also wish to reiterate France’s commitment to the status quo in the holy places in Jerusalem… As per my request, the foreign minister will personally and closely follow the details of the next decision on this subject. France will not sign a text that will distance her from the same principles I mentioned.”
Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault did not quite apologize: “France has no vested interest but is deeply convinced that if we do not want to let the ideas of the Islamic State group prosper in this region, we must do something.”
It sounds as if they thought they had made a mistake. But the vote was not a mistake. Underestimating the depth of Israel’s anger about it might have been a mistake, but not the vote. The French — who, according to their foreign minister, have “no vested interest” but need to “do something” about Islamic State — could not have thought that a UNESCO resolution that offended Israel would do anything to slow ISIS “in the region” or in Europe. There is no way it could; the two are not connected.
It’s another case of the silence of the shams, as the usual suspects for decrying discrimination clam up when Islam is involved. Reuters reports:
A group of 51 Muslim states has blocked 11 gay and transgender organizations from attending a high-level meeting at the United Nations next month on ending AIDS, sparking a protest by the United States, Canada and the European Union.
Egypt wrote to the president of the 193-member General Assembly on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to object to the participation of the 11 groups. It did not give a reason in the letter, which Reuters saw.
Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, wrote to General Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft and said the groups appeared to have been blocked for involvement in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy.
“Given that transgender people are 49 times more likely to be living with HIV than the general population, their exclusion from the high-level meeting will only impede global progress in combating the HIV/AIDS pandemic,” Power wrote.
Obama has asserted, by pure fiat, on no legal, medical, scientific, or commonsense grounds whatsoever, that he can dictate how children use school bathrooms around the country. This is an obnoxious and dangerous abuse of federal power, and it looks suspicious. What is Obama’s motivation?
Adults may not remember the deep shame and embarrassment children often feel, as early as age four, around toilet training. Sibling rivalry can get pretty intense. Being called a “poopy kid” by your brother or sister might look pretty harmless to parents, but young children can experience it as a sink-through-the-floor feeling of overwhelming shame. Getting bowel control is a learning process, and losing bowel control feels like a world-shaking catastrophe to a young child.
Bathrooms are built for privacy because they are surrounded by fear and shame, even after a hundred years of “progressive” theories. Childhood shame around potty training occurs long before the even bigger ups and downs of puberty, another enormously sensitive time “down there.”
Sexuality is an enormous psychic force, not some parlor game. Sexual politics has reshaped generations of young people in Western schools, and from there sexual politics has swept the culture. You can see the results with your own eyes.
Liberals have a long, long history of trivializing the emotional tempests of childhood and adolescence via the myth of “progressive parenting.”
But human biology wins that battle every single time they try to fiddle with the facts of life.
Wise parents just don’t interfere with a child’s turbulent emotional growth; nature is much, much wiser than we are. We can protect children by giving them privacy and emotional support when they ask for it. The growing child is the only judge of what feels comfortable during the most vulnerable years. Leave it to nature. CONTINUE AT SITE
