RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://jamieglazov.com/2016/02/19/the-case-of-mohammed-and-aisha-on-the-glazov-gang-3/

A recent bill in Pakistan sought to ban child marriage, but it miserably failed — after a prominent religious body declared the legislation “un-Islamic.” The UN also recently voiced alarm at the growing number of forced child marriages in Iran. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child denounced laws permitting sexual intercourse with girls as young as nine — and it urged Iran to “repeal all legal provisions that authorize, condone or lead to child sexual abuse.”

In response to these developments, The Glazov Gang is running its special episode with Louis Lionheart, a scholar of Islam who came on the show to discuss The Case of Mohammed and Aisha, dealing with the prophet of Islam’s marriage to a 6-year-old girl, and his “consummation” of that marriage when she was 9. Louis discusses the Islamic theology and texts that describe this marriage and how the Islamic and non-Islamic world has dealt, and not dealt, with the Islamic reality of this case.

Don’t miss it!

http://www.wsj.com/articles/majoring-in-anti-semitism-at-vassar-1455751940

Anti-Israel sentiment mixed with age-old anti-Semitism has reached a fever pitch at Vassar College. It is time that faculty and administrators take a stand against this toxic brew on behalf of academic values.

The campus of this private liberal-arts college in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., has experienced more than its share of anti-Israel activity. In the spring of 2014, the boycott of a course in the International Studies Program—because it involved a trip to Israel—included heckling students and picketing the class. During the fall of 2015, attempts were made to boycott Sabra hummus because the maker of this popular food is partly owned by an Israeli food company.

The most recent incident was a talk on Feb. 3 by Jasbir Puar, a Rutgers associate professor of women’s and gender studies. The address, “Inhumanist Biopolitics: How Palestine Matters,” was sponsored by eight Vassar departments and programs, including Jewish Studies and American Studies. READ MORE AT SITE

In a move uncharacteristic of U.S. policy as it has been carried out for decades, the Obama administration recently endorsed Europe’s version of a soft Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) campaign targeting Israeli merchandise.

In late January, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency changed its policy on imports from the West Bank, imposing, in effect, a sanction on such goods.

The penalty states that products must no longer be labeled “Made in Israel,” because the United States views the West Bank as territory illegitimately controlled by Israel.

Europe adopted such a labeling policy in November. Since then, the United States has chartered a zigzag course through the product demarcation debate. When asked in November if labeling constitutes a boycott, Mark C. Toner, U.S. State Department deputy spokesman, said: “It’s a—it could be—it could be perceived as a step on the way.”

Just last month, however, Toner’s boss, spokesman John Kirby, announced: “We do not view labeling the origin of products as being from the settlements a boycott of Israel. We also do not believe that labeling the origin of products is equivalent to a boycott.”

The United States, like the European Union, goes to great lengths to insist that demarcating Israeli products from the settlements is not a boycott.

For much of the second half of the 20th century, Abba Eban was one of the world’s most famous Jews. As the first representative of the fledgling state of Israel to the United Nations in 1948, and then as its ambassador to the UN and Washington, Eban shot to prominence through his eloquent defenses of the Jewish state in some of its most perilous early hours. For two decades after 1960, serving as Israel’s on-again, off-again foreign minister, he remained in the eyes of the world the indispensable “voice of Israel,” as David Ben-Gurion had dubbed him. His books on Jewish and Israeli history and a hefty autobiography were best-sellers, and Heritage: Civilization and the Jews, a 1984 public-television series in which he served as both writer and presenter, drew more than 50 million viewers.

Counting on posthumous recognition is a hazardous business. Still, it has been surprising how fast Eban has fallen out of memory since his death in 2002. This is too bad. Despite his fair share of personal flaws, most notably a pride that often slipped into vanity, Eban was one of the most interesting and impressive statesmen of the last century, and both his successes and perhaps especially his disappointments tell us much about the state of Israel.

That is reason enough to welcome the appearance of Asaf Siniver’s Abba Eban: A Biography. (An early, mainly hagiographical treatment by the journalist Robert St. John appeared in 1972.) An Israeli historian teaching in Britain, Siniver has produced an informative and well-researched if also somewhat boring account mainly of Eban’s political career. Although not so engaging as Eban’s own Autobiography, where the emphasis falls on thoughts and ideas as well as on politics, Siniver’s book does permit reflection on the central puzzle of Eban’s career.