RUTHFULLY YOURS

Rabbi David Saperstein was sworn in [1] as U.S. ambassador-at-large for religious freedom on Friday, February 20. Appropriately, Rabbi Saperstein emphasized the primacy of freedom of conscience in his acceptance remarks, noting [1] he would:

… use this position fervently; to advocate for freedom of thought, conscience, and belief; for the rights of individuals to practice, choose and change their faith safely; not only living their faith through worship, but through teaching, preaching, practice, and observance; as well as the right to hold no religious beliefs; and consequently, to seek strongly anti-blasphemy and apostasy laws.

Indeed, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo reasoned elegantly in Palko v. Connecticut [2] (1937) that, absent the right to freedom of thought or conscience, other rights such as the right to freedom of speech are rendered meaningless:

Freedom of thought … is the

Good luck Israel, as China and Russia court the craziest regime on earth.
The world now anticipates that the US will reach a strategic agreement with Iran. Russia and China are responding by offering their own deals to Tehran. A possible game-changer is Russia’s offer of the Antey-2500 air defense system to Iran. After canceling the planned delivery of the older, shorter-range S-300 system in 2010, Russia has now escalated drastically by proposing to sell Iran a much more effective system. Western air forces have never engaged the Russian system, so we don’t know how exactly good it is. No-one I know in the military wants to find out; by Western estimates, the Russian systems are extremely good. It is possible that Russia’s unwelcome intervention might make Iran effectively impregnable from attack by Israel. The Antey-2500 can take down missiles as well as airplanes.

In addition, Russia is retaliating against the West’s stance on Ukraine. Russia has made it clear all along that it would respond to Western efforts to remove Crimea from Russia by making trouble in Iran, as Russia’s deputy foreign minister warned last March. Russia, unlike the US, views the world as a single chessboard: attack my position here, and I will hurt you somewhere else where you are not prepared. Putin isn’t crazy; he’s a Russian commander in the classic mold, forcing the burden of uncertainty onto his adversary, muddying the waters and leaving his opponent guessing.

Here is the proof.

Shoebat – Our dear leader loves to talk about how Islam has been in the fabric of our nation since its birth. My Colleague Ted Shoebat has talked about the Barbary Pirate wars, but prior to the American Revolution the Arab Muslims of North Africa biggest economic trade was to supply Slaves all over the world of which about 5% of all African slaves ended up here in the USA/Colonies with the majority going to Central and South America as well as slaves in the MIddle East and India. Obama obvious hates those white rich land owners, the founders of America who enslaved Black people and were evil, but he conveniently omits the suppliers of the slaves were mostly Arab Muslims, and still today the overwhelming majority of slavery that is prevalent today is promoted and controlled by Muslims.

The attorney general seems intent on taking one more jab at the police before leaving the Justice Department.

When all was said and done, the events that unfolded in Ferguson, Mo., last summer were not extraordinary but rather all too familiar. Eighteen-year-old Michael Brown, a black robbery suspect, resisted arrest, attacked a police officer and was shot dead. We’ve seen this movie many times before. But what might have prompted a helpful discussion about high crime rates in black communities has instead prompted a dishonest debate over police behavior.

Instead of demanding what each side cannot do, we must ask what each side can do—and then make the most of it.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders sit at a table and sign a treaty that ends a century of conflict. Israel pledges to withdraw from most of the West Bank, to uproot dozens of settlements and to redivide Jerusalem. The Palestinians forfeit their demands for regaining Haifa and Jaffa and relocating millions of Palestinians to Israel. The right of the Jewish people to sovereignty in its homeland is recognized. Thereafter, Israel and Palestine will live side-by-side in prosperity, stability and peace.

That is what policy makers have sought for more than 20 years, without success. The reasons are simple. A final-status agreement would require Israelis to cede land that is vital to their security and which many regard as sacred; to evict 100,000 citizens from their homes; and to give up half of the country’s capital. A final-status agreement would also mean creating a Palestinian state ruled by a corrupt, unelected regime that, in the current regional chaos, is likely to fall to radicals.

Such sacrifices and risks could be justified only if the Palestinians were genuinely willing to end the conflict. They would have to renounce all further claims to Israeli territory and a “right of return,” and to recognize a legitimate Jewish state on their border. But no Palestinian leader has ever agreed to those terms.

By insisting on concessions that neither side can reasonably make, the peace process has not only failed but brought us further from peace.

Britons have anxiously followed for nearly a week the hunt for three missing teenage schoolgirls who aren’t “missing” at all. The trio appear to have evaded efforts to track them down as they journeyed to Syria to join Islamic State.

Authorities say the three girls lied to their families about their plans for the day on Feb. 17 to buy time to fly from London’s Gatwick Airport to Istanbul. From there they are believed to have traveled into Syria. One of the three allegedly was in contact via social media with Aqsa Mahmood, a 20-year-old Scottish woman who also became an Islamic State bride after she left Glasgow in 2013. The three apparently intend to do the same.

This has prompted tearful pleas from their families for them to return, and a promise from Prime Minister David Cameron to help. A debate is afoot on what rules should be in place to prevent unaccompanied minors from boarding planes under such circumstances, and how else government might intervene.

White House aides are whispering that President Obama ’s veto of the Keystone XL pipeline authorization bill signals a new phase of his Presidency, and we suppose they’re right. He’ll finish out his tenure as a Howard Hughes-like penthouse recluse who is ever more withdrawn from the political and economic center.

The legislation to build the Keystone XL pipeline that Mr. Obama rejected Tuesday enjoys a broad bipartisan consensus, including support from nine Senate Democrats and 28 in the House. Business, labor unions, most consumers, and ally and trading partner Canada are also in favor of this $8 billion infrastructure project, which will create jobs, strengthen North American energy security and increase prosperity.

In three weeks, on March 17, Israelis will go to the polls to elect the next Knesset. As has been the case since the 1980s, large numbers of people at this stage of the process consider themselves or claim to be “undecided” about which slip of paper they will actually place in the envelope in the voting booth.

If one were to base his assessment of the results of the current campaign on man-in-the-street interviews, water-cooler conversations and cafe banter, he would reach one of two conclusions: either that the Green Leaf party (whose platform is the legalization of marijuana) is on the verge of forming the next government, or that blank ballots will be submitted en masse.

Though it is true that a protest vote among predominantly young, secular residents of Tel Aviv in 2006 led to an astonishing victory for the Pensioners’ Party (it garnered a whopping seven seats, when it initially had no chance of passing the electoral threshold), it is generally understood that such gestures never even help further the narrow interests of the group ostensibly targeted, let alone those of anyone else.

Indeed, one thing that Israelis have learned is that no matter what platform a party puts forth, it ends up coming down on one side or the other of the defense divide (i.e., the “Palestinian” question), in spite of everyone’s assertion that elections are about the economy. The public certainly cares about its ability to make a living, and politicians always vie for votes on that score by promising to allocate greater portions of the budget to education, health and welfare. But because handouts only hinder growth, the plight of the middle and lower classes does not improve.

In late 1990, a year after the Revolution of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe, the peoples of the newly self-liberated countries, who had suffered under the Soviet jackboot since the endgame of World War II, could look back on a year of solid achievement while looking forward to a more prosperous future. Poland, which had led the way in making “1989,” was taking hard but necessary economic decisions that would eventually lead to years of growth and a prosperity unimaginable under Communism. Czechoslovakia, under the tutelage of President Vaclav Havel, whose luminous writings qualified him as the Poet Laureate of “1989,” had welcomed Pope John Paul II to Prague and was preparing in a civilized and democratic way to let his country divide itself into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Germany had reunified on October 3, 1990, despite the nervousness of Margaret Thatcher, François Mitterrand, and other Western European leaders. Not without sacrifice, the Baltic states were beginning to disentangle themselves from the Soviet Union, into which they had been forcibly incorporated during World War II, thus setting in motion the implosion of the USSR that would be finalized in August 1991.

Every time Obama “contextualizes,” Putin and ISIS grow bolder. Not too long ago, most Russians were reportedly unhappy with Vladimir Putin. His crackdown on freedom and his kleptocratic economy were hardly popular. Most likely, given their druthers, Russians were not all that interested in Putin’s risky and costly dream of gobbling up former Soviet Republics to create some grander version of Russia’s mess. But now? As the ruble crashes, as Russia’s oil income dives, and as sanctions start biting the man in the street, Putin, in counterintuitive fashion, is apparently more popular than ever.
Why? Because he has become an easy mechanism for ordinary Russians to vent frustration and anger over what they perceive as a too-powerful and bullying West. In a fairer world, Western decadence and self-indulgence would not have earned Americans and Western Europeans singular wealth, leisure, influence, and an overall good life — at least not more so than an Orthodox, politically proud, and historically illustrious Mother Russia.