RUTHFULLY YOURS

“Nostre Aetate,” released in 1965, called for friendship and dialogue between Catholics and Jews, instead of the centuries-long repudiation of Jews by Catholics; St Joseph’s University became the first to respond by establishing the Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations. Is Pope Francis picking up where Pope Paul VI left off?

Can Pope Francis’ hopes and dreams for reconciliation of Catholics and Jews override some unfortunate but pressing realities, such the Church’s desire to placate the Palestinians?

If Pope Francis is serious about a “journey of friendship” with the Jewish people, perhaps he would not be so quick to approve President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal in the name of a hoped-for peace that will most certainly ignite an unhoped-for war between Iran and Israel.

By assisting the UN in establishing the “sustainable development platform,” the Pope is offering his permission to the UN — one of the most anti-Semitic, anti-Israel bodies on the face of the earth — to usurp power on behalf of a shared utopian agenda. Sustainable development notwithstanding, the UN should be encouraged to clean up its own house before it tries to clean up the world.

A lot of water as passed under the bridge between Catholics and Jews in the past 1800 years or so. Most of it has been polluted by the evils of anti-Semitism perpetrated by the Catholic Church against the Jews of Europe, starting with the earliest published Christian writings by the early ante-Nicene Church Fathers, such as Tertullian. His document “Judeos Adversos” has stood for centuries as one of the key church position papers against the Jews.

Shortly after the IRA had tried to wipe out the British cabinet and assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984, Jeremy Corbyn invited the Sinn Fein/IRA leaders to Parliament.

Jeremy Corbyn did not spend his time bolstering the crucial moderate forces in Northern Ireland. Instead he pushed forward the most violent and anti-democratic forces in the conflict.

Most sinisterly, he has been a constant champion of Jawad Botmeh and Samar Alami, two men who were convicted of the 1994 bomb attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets in London.

Rather than admit to having spent decades palling up to the worst anti-Semites and Israel-haters worldwide, Corbyn is trying to claim that he has in fact been involved — deep undercover, away from the eyes of any respectable negotiator — in a “peace process.”

Whatever political angle you come from, the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader is a seismic change in British politics. Political wonks in the UK have become fond of comparing him with Michael Foot, who led Labour to a disastrous election defeat in 1983, and whose party manifesto for that election was famously described as the “longest suicide note in history.” The election of Corbyn is principally of interest at home and abroad not because of his far-left wing views on economics, nationalization and the rest, but for the fact that it mainstreams current bigotry and racism.

Polls show strong support for military action while politicians dither with ineffective air strikes.
French public-opinion polling says the country wants French ground troops to fight Islamic State in Syria. No kidding.

The Socialist government responded Sunday by announcing it had made air strikes instead. This first intervention hardly differed from the U.S. air-only tactics the French privately insist doesn’t represent an effective Syrian strategy and damages Barack Obama’s pledge to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State as an enemy of civilization.

The poll findings signal a combative reflex from the French, unique so far among their allies. Published in early September, two polls showed the French favoring by 61% and 56% majorities the dispatch of French ground troops to Syria as part of an international force.

Investors sell as hostility to innovation rises in Washington.

Health-care stocks suffered an ugly tumble on Monday, dragging down the overall Dow Jones Industrial Average by nearly 2%. The selloff was particularly marked in biotech, with Nasdaq ’s industry index plunging 6%, extending a 13% drop last week, and erasing all gains so far this year, as the nearby chart shows. Thus does politics injure the real economy.

Analysts attributed the slide to a letter that socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and House Democrats sent Monday to Valeant Pharmaceuticals threatening a subpoena and demanding the drug maker justify price increases for two heart rhythm medications. Valeant shares were off 17% for the day.

The letter illustrates the larger problem of growing political hostility to drug research and development. Last week Hillary Clinton joined the children’s crusade, rebuking “price gouging” and promising to introduce price controls on pharmaceuticals. Enthusiasm for such central planning is rising among Democrats, and even some Republicans, on Capitol Hill.

This political campaign has been dishonest and virtually fact-free, with a focus on list prices that are negotiated down and that the critics know are rarely paid in full. Name-brand prices are rising only modestly after rebates and discounts, and costs over time are rising more slowly than the historical trend.

A TV ad highlights the racial inequality of New York’s public school system.

When Bill de Blasio was elected mayor of New York in 2013, he came in riding two progressive narratives.

The grand narrative was his “Tale of Two Cities,” a New York where elites grow rich while millions of others are left struggling for basics. Running through this tale was the subtheme of race, especially of young African-Americans being unfairly deprived of their rights. So when the #BlackLivesMatter movement exploded in New York last year, Mr. de Blasio naturally embraced it.

“They’ve said ‘Black Lives Matter,’ ” he declared at a church in Staten Island. “And they said it because it had to be said.”

Today, however, the mayor is finding that his progressive measures are being turned against him. For nowhere in New York is the divide between haves and have-nots—or between black and white—as stark as it is on equal access to a decent education. It is this divide the pro-charter Families for Excellent Schools will highlight on Wednesday as mothers and fathers march across the Brooklyn Bridge to demand “school equality,” i.e., great schools for all children.

“If this isn’t genocide, I really don’t know why we bother to have international treaties and conventions.”

With this grim statement, Kurdistan Regional Government Representative to the United States Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman opened a Sept. 10 panel at the Washington, D.C.Heritage Foundation to discuss the horror inflicted on Iraq by the Islamic State.

Fellow panelist Hudson Institute religious freedom expert Nina Shea described in detail a “religious genocide directed against the various religious groups that do not conform to ISIS’ vision of Sunni Islam” – factions such as Christians. Heritage national security expertSteve Bucci agreed, saying that his findings during an extensive study of the Islamic State provided the “clearest example of genocide that I have ever read or seen since World War II’s Nazis.” “We should not be afraid of using that word,” Rahman said, of the term “genocide.” While she acknowledged lawmaker concerns regarding the political drawbacks to utilizing such strong wording, she adamantly declared, “We should call a spade a spade.”

Shea spoke about the Islamic State’s rise in the context of Saudi education’s intolerance of the religious other that has created “immeasurable damage throughout the Sunni world with this brainwashing and these directives of hatred.” She referenced Quran 9:29’s traditional three choices for Christians and other monotheists subjugated by Islamic conquest: death, conversion to Islam or payment of the humiliating jizya poll tax, and pointed out that with ISIS, the latter option is a “bogus kind of arrangement, because the tax keeps rising.”

Dear Glenn Kessler,

First of all, how come your “Fact Checker” column of 9/22 awarding Dr. Ben Carson “Four Pinnochios” for his statement regarding “taqiyya” is running for a second time? It first appeared last week, but there it is again in today’s paper, 9/27, on p. A5.

Oh well, I missed it the first time. It’s definitely worth revisiting.

Dr. Carson said the following: “`Taqiyya’ is a component of sharia that allows, and even encourages you to lie to achieve your goals.”

You then write: “In other words, he appeared to be saying that this tenet of Islam offered some kind of loophole that would allow the Muslim to lie about his or her religious beliefs to pursue other objectives. Is this the case?” (Emphasis added.)

For the record, your paraphrase is not what Carson said. He invoked “taqiyya” to describe a concept in sharia, or Islamic law, that, as he put it, “allows and even encourages [a Muslim] to lie to achieve [his] goals.”

I note that you have chosen to frame Dr. Carson’s very broad claim about sharia-approved lying by focusing on a literal definition of “taqiyya,” as if Carson were discussing only whether Muslims were specifically permitted to lie about “religious beliefs.”

President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry have conceded that some portion of the money released to Iran through the lifting of sanctions will result in “bad behavior,” a euphemism for terrorism. The supposition of the president’s team is that despite the bad behavior, Iran, unconstrained by sanctions, will in time join the community of responsible nations. In other words our concessions will yield a positive response from the Supreme Leader Khamenei and his acolytes.

What is in evidence in these negotiations is the implicit Western belief in rationalism, a stance that suggests our enemies, with the appropriate incentives, will act just as we would. “Trust but verify” is the qualifier President Reagan used in his negotiations with the Soviets. President Obama, on the other hand, has resorted to trust and have faith in rational expectations. What happens when the adversary is irrational remains unclear. A theological belief system and acceptance of taqiyya or a religious lie to promote the interests of Islam, challenge assumptions of rationality.

One of the Glazov Gang’s most popular episodes was joined by Geert Wilders, the founder and leader of the “Party for Freedom” — which is currently the fourth-largest party in the Dutch parliament. Mr. Wilders is best known for his brave stance against, and truth-telling about, Islam. He is the author of Marked for Death: Islam’s War Against the West and Me.

Mr. Wilders came on the program to crystallize the only way the West will be able to preserve itself.

Did you miss this BLOCKBUSTER episode?

Here it is below:

Britain should not be party to a body that has Saudi Arabia making crucial appointments.
George Osborne has been taking considerable flak for doing trade deals with China despite its oppressive authoritarian regime. Yet his critics have been silent on the elevation of one of the world’s most barbaric tyrannies to a key role in promoting global human rights. Saudi Arabia’s envoy to the UN Human Rights Council has been chosen to head its five-member appointments panel.

This recommends applicants for more than 77 positions shaping international human rights standards and reporting on violations around the world. How crazy is this? Saudi Arabia tyrannises women, dissidents, Christians and gays. Some argue that this year it has beheaded more people than Isis.