RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/545/instant_view_the_lesson_of_the_shalit_deal_is_that_it_is_israel_not_gaza_that_remains_under_siege
The release of Gilad Shalit is a moment for celebration. But it is also a moment to ponder on the extraordinary circumstances of Israeli survival in a desperately hostile region

The release on Tuesday of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas five years ago, in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners is a poignant moment in the recent history of the Middle East.

Emotions are both high, and mixed.

The one thing that everyone, even the BBC, is talking about is the “asymmetry” of the deal.

Imagine if the American or British governments agreed to release such vast numbers of terrorists, child-killers and assorted violent fanatics into the arms of an enemy sworn to destroy them for the return of a single, solitary captured soldier.

“Imagine” is the operative word, because it never has happened and it is all but impossible to imagine that it ever would.

Our reasons are clear: however committed we are to the principle of “no soldier left behind” we know that such a deal would merely incentivise further such kidnappings in the future, thus encouraging a never ending cycle of similar such events in which the terrorists would always have the upper hand.

For many in the West, Israel’s actions are therefore perplexing. Surely, they say, Israel must know better. The Jewish state, among all states in the world, knows the dangers of making deals with terrorists. What is going on?

http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/10/18/debate-score-perry-for-the-win/?singlepage=true Debate Score: Perry for the Win There were two Ricks on debate stage tonight, and both came in loaded up and ready to hunt. Rick Santorum threw a blizzard of punches at Mitt Romney early over his claim that as president, Romney, the author of RomneyCare, would repeal ObamaCare. The punches landed and the […]

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/two-more-terrorists-traced-back-to-jihad-u/?print=1

Last week, underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab pleaded guilty [1] for trying to murder 289 innocent civilians on Christmas Day 2009: he claimed he is guilty under U.S. law, but innocent under Islamic law. Earlier this month, North Carolina resident and al-Qaeda English-language propagandist Samir Khan met his end [2] in a drone strike targeting al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader Anwar al-Awlaki, former imam at the Dar al-Hijrah terrorist factory [3] in Falls Church, Virginia.

Both Abdulmutallab and Khan had connections to Awlaki, but they also had one additional tie: they were both former members of the extremist AlMaghrib Institute. (I first wrote about [4] AlMaghrib’s extremist teaching back in February 2007.) With Khan’s death and Abdulmutallab’s guilty plea, the pair join a long line of terrorist operatives who have graduated from “Jihad U.”

More Trouble in France: Mayotte Riots Posted By Michel Gurfinkiel URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/more-trouble-in-france-mayotte-riots/ Mayotte — a tiny, overpopulated island (376 square kilometers, 186,452 inhabitants) in the Indian Ocean — is rioting. The youth are fighting a street war against the gendarmes. Most employees are striking, many shops have been looted. Some Caucasian residents have […]

http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2011/10/19/the_edujobs_iii_bailout/print

One of my son’s Suzuki violin teachers had a wise twist on an old saying: “If at first you don’t succeed, try something else.” The corollary? “When you do succeed, don’t stop. Do it again.” The White House could use some remedial Suzuki lessons in economics. They’ve got everything completely bass-ackward.

In February 2009, President Obama signed the trillion-dollar American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Nearly $115 billion was earmarked for education. The stimulator-in-chief’s crack team of Ivy League economists predicted the law would hold the jobless rate under 8.5 percent.

The actual unemployment rate in October 2009 skyrocketed to a whopping 10.2 percent.

In August 2010, President Obama went back to the well. With deep-pocketed public employee unions by his side, he lobbied hard for the so-called “EduJobs” bill — $26 billion more to bail out bankrupt states, school districts and public hospitals. Nearly half went to teachers, whose unions raked in an estimated $50 million in rank-and-file dues as a result. Obama’s economists had promised the jobless rate would be down to 7.9 percent by then.

http://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2011/10/19/death_of_a_hero/print

There are very few people we come across who profoundly touch our lives — parents, teachers, friends. Almost all have one aspect in common: They spend copious amounts of time with us.

Then there are the rarities, folks who move us deeply even after just a few meetings. These are people who don’t require time to make their presence felt. These people leave their indelible mark simply by being who they are. We are lucky to come into contact with them.

One of these people died this week. His name was Jack Slomovic, and he passed away at age 86 in Los Angeles. I had the honor of helping him write his memoirs over the course of the last month. His loss represents not just a loss for his family or his community, it reminds us that as we lose our eldest generation, we seem to be losing something much deeper — our sense of individualism, entrepreneurialism and fighting spirit. His life reminds us that we can rebuild all of those elements anew.

Slomovic’s story is incredible. He was born in 1925, in a little town in Czechoslovakia called Solotfina. With the outbreak of World War II, the Hungarians took over the town, implementing anti-Jewish laws at the behest of the Nazis. In 1944, the Germans themselves occupied Solotfina and moved all of the Jews into a ghetto. From there, the Jews were shipped to Auschwitz.

http://townhall.com/columnists/dianawest/2011/10/19/commie_plot_that_put_us_in_the_red/print The most amazing aspects of the accelerating American submission to the state are: 1) how matter-of-fact we are in contemplating massive government interventions, such as President Barack Obama’s latest stimulus “jobs” plan, and 2) how virtually no one notices the blatant Marxist overtones. When someone does, a la “Joe the Plumber” at the end […]

http://www.hudson-ny.org/2518/united-nations-slavery Like you, I came to this conference, The Perils of Global Intolerance to protest this third Durban conference which is an effort based on a set of lies, and organized by nations who are themselves are guilty of the worst kinds of oppression. Durban III will not help the victims of racism. It will […]

Who’s a Zionist? Those who support policies that endanger Israel, suggests Jeremy Ben-Ami.
http://www.jidaily.com/gRGBB/e

A New Voice for Israel: Fighting for the Survival of the Jewish Nation, by Jeremy Ben-Ami (Palgrave Macmillan, 242 pp., $26)

THE BOOK’S TITLE SHOULD BE “HOW TO PRETEND TO BE A ZIONIST WHILE HELPING ISRAEL’S ENEMIES DESTROY IT”….RSK

You have to give Jeremy Ben-Ami his due. In 2008, the liberal activist and former Clinton administration official founded J Street as a left-wing alternative to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the lobbying group for Israel in the United States. A new organization was needed, Ben-Ami writes at the beginning of his book—part memoir, part political tract—because the “arc of conflict involving Israel in the Middle East, though long, was ultimately bent toward peace.” Unfortunately, Ben-Ami adds, because of the Netanyahu government, “the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict [might] slip through our fingers. As that happens, the dream of the Jewish people to be a free people in their own land also slowly disappears.” To keep this dream alive, the peace process needs a jolt from progressive American Jews in the form of more criticism of the Israeli government’s intransigence on negotiations with the Palestinians.

http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/content/module/2011/10/18/main-feature/1/the-genesis-of-modern-science/e Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, and the other founders of modern science were all believers in the truths of the opening chapter in the Hebrew Bible.  The belief implicit in Genesis, that nature was created by a law-giving God and so must be governed by “laws of nature,” played a necessary role in the […]