RUTHFULLY YOURS

Sentiment in the West remains opposed to putting ‘boots on the ground’, which is understandable. Much harder to comprehend is the civilized world’s tardiness in supporting the forces that have beaten ISIS and continue to do so
The Bush/Rumsfeld doctrine of sending a heavy American army (then backed by Australia) to drive Saddam out of Iraq is now widely seen as a mistake. But more than that, it has become a convenient straw man for the isolationists who support passivity in the Middle East. Opposition to ‘boots on the ground’ is the catch cry of both those on the isolationist right and what might be termed the Mike Carlton/John Pilger left, which leverages the West’s understandable weariness of military involvement in the Middle East.

But the question is not ‘boots on the ground’. The real question is, ‘whose boots on the ground?’

In the last few weeks Turkey has supposedly sealed its borders against ISIS infiltrators going backwards and forwards. Ankara’s Islamist leadership has a lot to answer for the backing of fundamentalists in Syria and Iraq, the resultant disasters, and concomitant refugee outflows of millions of desperate Sunni Muslims.

The National Women’s Studies Association has voted by a huge majority to join the worldwide Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

Their annual conference passed the measure by a 653-86 vote, and their full membership of 12,000 will vote on it in the next two months.

That means the NWSA is on the verge of becoming the fifth American academic association to boycott Israel since April 2013. It began then with the Association for Asian American Studies, and since that time the American Studies Association, the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, the American Anthropological Association, and now the NWSA have joined in.

The BDS movement is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and other radical and terror-supporting groups. Its aim is to “solve” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by putting an end to Israel. Its leader are quite explicit about that.

For example, As’ad Abu Khalil: “Justice and freedom for the Palestinians are incompatible with the existence of the State of Israel.” Or Ahmed Moor: “OK, fine. So BDS does mean the end of the Jewish state…. In other words, BDS is not another step on the way to the final showdown; BDS is The Final Showdown.”

None of this, of course, deterred the women’s-studies scholars from signing-on to the movement. Considering that the vote was initiated by a group called Feminists for Justice in/for Palestine, the nature of BDS was undoubtedly an added attraction for many.

Apparently standing with fellow Christians being slaughtered in the Middle East is less important

Larycia Hawkins is a political science professor at Wheaton College, a Christian college in Illinois. On Thursday, she announced on her Facebook page that she will wear a hijab throughout Advent as a symbol of solidarity with Muslims. She plans to wear it everywhere: to work, to class, to church, and on the plane ride home for the Christmas holiday. The Christian Post reports:

“I don’t love my Muslim neighbor because s/he is American. I love my Muslim neighbor because s/he deserves love by virtue of her/his human dignity…I stand in human solidarity with my Muslim neighbor because we are formed of the same primordial clay, descendants of the same cradle of humankind — a cave in Sterkfontein, South Africa that I had the privilege to descend into to plumb the depths of our common humanity in 2014.”

Hawkins…further asserted that not only are Muslims her neighbors but they also “worship the same God.”

“I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God”….

“As part of my Advent Worship, I will wear the hijab to work at Wheaton College, to play in Chi-town, in the airport and on the airplane to my home state that initiated one of the first anti-Sharia laws (read: unconstitutional and Islamophobic), and at church.”….

BDS lies when they call our brave soldiers “war criminals” and accuse the IDF of “war crimes.” So let me introduce non-Israel, non-Jewish neutral experts to give their opinion.

The High Level Military Group, 14 international former chiefs of staff and senior military officers reviewed the 2014 Gaza conflict from both the IDF and Hamas operations.

They visited Israel both during and after the conflict. They interviewed soldiers from the regular foot soldiers to unit commanders all the way up to the highest ranks of the IDF. In their fact finding missions they also spoke with military intelligence personnel.

While conducting in-depth analysis into Operation Protective Edge they received unprecedented access to the IDF and to government officials up to the Prime Minister that, together with their impeccable military expertise, enabled them to produce a fair and factual report, which they released in early December 2015.

They began by admitting that Israel’s military efforts were entirely necessary and justified in the defense of Israel’s national security as a result of the aggressive and offensive operations conducted against Israeli civilian centers by Hamas and their other terror affiliates in support of Palestinian Hamas actions initiated against Israel.