RUTHFULLY YOURS

There is one leader in the world who has taken courageous steps across religious boundaries to help Middle Eastern Christians in their hour of need, breaking precedent and in many cases offending adherents of his own religion.

Of course, I am not talking about Pope Francis, but about Egyptian President Fatah al-Sisi, a devout Muslim who appeared last Christmas at the cathedral of his country’s Coptic Christians, the first Egyptian leader to do so. The Cops are a persecuted minority who comprise about a tenth of the Egyptian population. The Coptic language derives from ancient Egyptian, and the Copts are the remnant of old Egypt, conquered by Alexander the Great and Christianized by Constantine, before the Arab invasion of the 7th century C.E. Standing next to the Coptic Pope Tawadros II, al-Sisi declared, “We cannot say anything but: we, the Egyptians.”

President al-Sisi is locked in a life-and-death battle against the terrorists of the Muslim Brotherhood, allied to elements of al-Qaeda. During the Muslim Brotherhood’s less than year-long reign as Egypt’s government during 2012-2013, forty Coptic churches were burned to the ground, 23 were damaged, and hundreds of Coptic Christians murdered. For the moment the Copts are secure, but we are witness to “the twilight of Middle Eastern Christianity” in the Levant, as Hisham Melham wrote 28 February in al-Arabiya.

http://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2015/05/for-israel-and-saudi-arabia-cooperation-but-not-reconciliation/

http://www.inss.org.il/index.aspx?id=4538&articleid=9457

Saudi Arabia and Israel currently share some strategic priorities; however, writes Mark A. Heller, these are unlikely to lead to lasting rapprochement

It may well be the case that convergent threat assessments do facilitate some covert contact between the security echelons of Israel and some of the Arab states concerned about the shadow of Iranian hegemony, and the potential may exist for expanded ties. But the added value of more intense and/or overt ties is not self-evident, and it could reasonably be argued that the potential benefits to Israel of a real regional approach are too modest to justify the soul-searching and domestic political tensions that would inevitably ensue. Whatever the potential benefits may be, a regional approach cannot be actuated without some tangible Israeli movement on the Palestinian question, or at least some persuasive evidence that the main obstacle to movement is not found on Israeli side. That, however, implies policy changes that the incoming Israeli government shows few signs of contemplating.
Topics:
Israel, Arab World, Palestinians, Gulf States
Saudi Arabia is increasingly apprehensive about Iran, increasingly distrustful of the Obama administration’s ability or willingness to contain Iran’s hegemonial ambitions, and increasingly bent on confronting Iran itself — with or without American approval — even if that requires the use of military force. The most visible manifestation of this posture is the Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen, dubbed “Operation Decisive Storm,” which was launched in late March in order to halt the advance of Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. The United States, Saudi Arabia’s closest ally, was not consulted about Decisive Storm, as the head of Central Command was forced to acknowledge to the Senate Armed Services Committee; in fact, it learned about the operation only three hours before it began, when the American military attaché was called in for an advance briefing.

Saudi military forces ready to fire into Yemen from positions inside Saudi territory as part of Operation Decisive Storm, April 13, 2015. Photo: Carolyn Cole/ Getty Images
Such independent Saudi assertiveness against regional actors suspected of benefiting from Iranian support or at least of objectively enhancing Iranian influence is not altogether unprecedented. For example, Saudi (and UAE) forces were dispatched to Bahrain at the height of the uprising by the Shia majority against the Sunni monarchy in March 2011. But they did not directly engage in combat operations or take a major role in physically suppressing the rebellion. Thus the intervention in Yemen constitutes, if not an innovation, then certainly a dramatic elevation in Saudi activism.

Yesterday I had the honor of listening to a speech by Geert Wilders. It was at a private luncheon, venue and the text of his speech are off the record and I’ll respect that. There is no wiser, more prophetic, more courageous, more articulate, more knowledgeable and more convincing person on the international and political scene today. He is today’s Winston Churchill warning Western civilization of the threat of radical Islam…essentially what Norman Podhoretz has called “World War Four.”

There is an old saying “Give ’em enough rope, and they’ll hang themselves.” Today it should be “Give’em enough ROP (Religion of Peace) and they’ll hang themselves.”

All these efforts to air-brush terrorism and jihad with fatuous excuses and claims that they are not driven by faith or the Koran are leaving us ever more vulnerable. Garland, Texas where Wilders spoke at Pamela Geller’s event is the latest example in a concatenation of Jihadist rhetoric and murders right here in the United States. Where is our legislator with the guts to state this?

Bless Geert Wilders and keep him safe.

Founder of Arabs for Israel Nonie Darwish, who tells her fascinating story of being the ex-Muslim daughter of a celebrated Egyptian “shahid” in Now They Call Me Infidel, offers a thought-provoking insight (above) on the impact she sees Islam — specifically Islamic terrorism — having on Americans.

Terrorism in the Islamic world, she explains, is a tool that is used at every level of government and in the family, too, as a “legal tool” of sharia enforcement. Such terror-violence, in other words, is perfectly normal in Islamic society, and is in accord with Islamic law. People, including “moderate” Muslims, have long been desensitized to such terrorism and accept it.

President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has earned a reputation as the most lawless agency in an administration infamous for its abuses of the Constitution and the rule of law. The EPA, for example, implemented a “cap and trade” regime that Congress rejected, brought criminal actions against citizens for “wetland” violations as it sought power over more landowners, and declared a “war on coal” that will put thousands out of work, drive up the price of electricity, and render its delivery unreliable. Now, the EPA may set a convicted killer free.

In late 2013, the EPA declared over a million acres in west-central Wyoming, including the town of Riverton (pop. 10,000), as part of the Wind River Indian Reservation — that is, “Indian country.” Purportedly, the EPA’s action is required by a Clean Air Act provision allowing tribes to obtain the authority available to states to regulate their air-quality programs; but, in doing so, the EPA subjected land — long known to be outside the reservation — to the tribal jurisdiction of the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone. The tribes had sought for years to get jurisdiction over the land, but with President Obama in office, they saw their opening with the Clean Air Act provision, which is why the tribes used 82 pages of their 87-page application to argue that Riverton and the other acreage was “Indian country.”

One’s personal grievances are not conclusive evidence of society-wide problems.
At the Washington Post today, Richard Cohen takes issue with critics (me among them) of Michelle Obama’s comments at the recent dedication of the New York City’s new Whitney museum. After a few unpleasant words about Rush Limbaugh, Cohen gets to his argument, the whole of which is neatly summarized in the second of these two sentences:

When the first lady of the United States suggests that something’s wrong when black and other minority children feel alienated from an institution like the Whitney Museum of American Art, maybe she has reason for saying so. In fact, she was talking out of experience.

I have referred to Cohen’s “argument,” but I regret to say that that is a misnomer. In fact, Cohen has abdicated the responsibility for making an argument, finding it sufficient to pin his conclusion entirely on the first lady’s testimony: Mrs. Obama has felt it, therefore it is a problem. Q.E.D.

The Obama narrative that Israel poses the only opposition goes up in smoke.
There appears to be a small problem with President Barack Obama’s summit of Persian Gulf states taking place at Camp David on Thursday: Arab leaders want virtually nothing [2] to do with it. Only the emirs of Qatar and Kuwait, two out of the six leaders of countries that comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), will attend. The point man of the apparent snub is Saudi Arabian monarch King Salman, who took power in January after his brother, King Abdullah, died. Salman decided [3] not to attend at the eleventh hour, despite Obama promising him a separate meeting, described [4] by sources in Riyadh as a “photo op” aimed at convincing an American audience that Saudi Arabia and other Arab states are on board with Obama’s determination to secure a deal with Iran. They aren’t.

The Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council has long been regarded by the sane world as a farcical organization consisting of the world’s worst human rights abusers. It is a place where nations like Saudi Arabia – which still implements oppressive Sharia laws, subjugates women and bans all religions except for Islam – sits in judgment of other nations and dictates to them ways in which to address human rights abuses. In metaphoric terms, it’s akin to the fox guarding the chicken coop.

Driven by blind anti-Semitism and hatred for the “infidel Yahuds” who defile “holy Arab-Muslim soil,” Israel frequently and almost exclusively finds itself on the receiving end of the UNHRC’s hypocritical invective. Occasionally, however, the democracy stalwarts of the UNHRC will challenge the human rights records of other democracies. On Monday, the Council zeroed [2] in on the United States and took great pleasure in needling the world’s greatest democracy.

In the Cold War days, the KGB relied on an extensive network of Communists and leftist fellow travelers for espionage and propaganda. As the motherland of socialism, the USSR could draw on allegiances from foreign leftists too in love with all the infrastructure projects to care about the prisoners building them.

But the easy ideological solidarity was faltering even during the Cold War. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the temporary anti-war line demanded of Western Communists and fellow travelers put a bigger strain on the relationship than the assorted trials and executions of domestic Communists had. Khrushchev’s exposure of Stalin drove away the Stalinists and left the apologists. The USSR lost its radical edge and those seeking it turned to Communist regimes in Asia and Third World terrorists.

President Obama said today that the incidents with police in Baltimore and Ferguson, along with “a growing awareness of inequality in our society,” can turn attention back to poverty in America and bridge “ideological divides that have prevented us from making progress.”

At the Georgetown University panel on poverty, Obama name-dropped Ayn Rand and acknowledged he may speak differently to a black audience.

Panelists joining the president were American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks, Harvard professor Robert Putnam, and Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne.