RUTHFULLY YOURS

No, this did not happen ‘a long time ago, in a galaxy far-far away’. It happened in the Hawaiian archipelago; and it all started towards the end of the 19th century.

Brought as natural pest exterminators, the mongooses soon proved to be just another pest.
Brought as natural rat exterminators, the mongooses soon proved to be just another pest…

At the time, Caribbean plantation owners were tired of their relentless war against field rats – the rodents were eating into their precious sugar cane crops. Come 1872, a chap called W.B. Espaut had an original idea: why not bring over a few Indian mongooses – those unpretentious mammals known as enthusiastic rat hunters? Espaut travelled to India, had some mongooses captured and brought them to Jamaica. Proud of his achievement, the fellow even wrote a journal article, praising the mongoose as the best thing since sliced bread. The carnivorous mammals had, it seems, multiplied and prospered. They ate lots of rats, but also, explained Espaut with satisfaction,

“snakes, lizards, crabs, toads and the grubs of many beetles and caterpillars have been destroyed.”

This unreserved praise grabbed the attention of Hawaiian sugar cane planters, who also suffered from the rats. Bringing mongooses to Hawaii as natural pest exterminators seemed such an elegant idea. True, around 1883 some wise Hawaiian farmer wrote a letter to the ‘Planters Monthly’, urging caution:

“Whether it would be wise to introduce the animal to these Islands may be a question. It would be important to first learn more of the nature of the creature, for they may prove an evil.”

But who listens to such prophecies of doom? Why work hard to hunt or trap the rats, when one could simply let the mongooses do away with them? ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’. Long live the alliance between man and mongoose!

…while the rats continued to multiply and prosper.
…while the rats continued to multiply and prosper.

The problem – it soon turned out – was that the mongooses did not just kill rats; they killed birds, ate eggs, insects, useful reptiles, even small deer fawns. True, the mongooses also hunted and killed lots of rats; but they did not kill them all. In fact, the rodents continued to multiply – and so did the mongooses. Worse, both rats and mongooses carry a disease called leptospirosis, which can be lethal to humans. To cut a long story short, rather than getting rid of one pest, the hapless Hawaiians ended up with two. To this day, they still have to use poison and traps – only now they fight both rats and mongooses.
Given his childhood spent in Hawaii, one would expect US President Barack Obama to be familiar with that historic blunder. Which would be useful, because there’s an important lesson to be learned from it.

Breaking news: terrorists kill people!After playing ‘useful idiots’ to Islamist propaganda emanating from Gaza, Western politicians and mainstream ‘journalists’ were suddenly sent into a frenzy by a gruesome video showing yet another jihadist ‘executing’ an American hostage – who happened to be a journalist himself. Leaving aside the ‘execution method’ (which is nothing new either, beheading is being practiced on a large scale by the ‘Western-friendly’ Saudi monarchy), what’s the surprise here? Breaking news, folks: from Munich 1972 to Karachi 2002 to Gaza 2014, that’s what terrorists do: they kidnap and murder people, in order to generate terror. That’s why they’re called terrorists (by persons equipped with moral compass; confused and confusing media outlets such as the BBC call them ‘militants’ – as if they marched in protests and chanted slogans, rather than slaughtering innocent people).

Terrorist holding hostage Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics “Ap munich905 t” by Russell McPhedran – © 1972 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Licensed under Fair use of copyrighted material in the context of Munich massacre via Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ap_munich905_t.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Ap_munich905_t.jpg
Terrorist holding hostage Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. All 11 hostages were killed.
(“Ap munich905 t” by Russell McPhedran – © 1972 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Licensed under Fair use of copyrighted material in the context of Munich massacre via Wikipedia)

In that particular video, the executioner happened to sport a British accent. Well, surely it should not come as a surprise to anyone (not after 7/7, the murder of Lee Rigby, etc. etc. etc.) that the ranks of the terrorists include Western jihadis. Across Europe, hundreds of young Muslims (born and bred in the democratic West) are joining ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra and other terrorist outfits. MI5 thinks they constitute 10% of the foreign ‘fighters’ in Syria and Iraq.
It’s not the poverty

Hamas terrorists ‘execute collaborators’ in Gaza City (photo: Fox News, free to use & share, even commercially)
Hamas terrorists ‘execute collaborators’ in Gaza City (photo: Fox News, free to use & share, even commercially)

But for some ‘journalists’, this does not change the pre-conceived script. Or rather, the script dictated by their own blind and rigid ideological line – so blind and rigid that it looms completely opaque between their cognisance and the reality in front of their very eyes. That ideological line, a nauseating mixture of neo-Marxism and crypto-racism (I call it Marxist racism), asserts that misbehaviour is simply generated by socio-economic factors; and – in the mind of these neo-Marxist-racists – if one is not ‘white British’, one is by definition poor and frustrated.
Take, for instance, a certain Anna Holligan, employed – surprise-surprise! – by good ol’ BBC. Just a few days ago, she wrote about concerns in the Netherlands:

More than 100 Dutch citizens are thought to be fighting for various groups in Syria and Iraq, and hundreds more have been identified as potential jihadists.

These are the facts. But then comes the analysis. The ideology-tainted ‘analysis’:

Many young Muslims are struggling to find work and acceptance in the Netherlands, he tells me. The promise of a glorified existence extolled by radical preachers resonates with the vulnerable and disaffected. While there is little appetite for the bloodthirsty approach espoused by Islamic State militants, the idea of going to defend fellow Muslims appears to be compelling for some young people who lack hope at home but see potential abroad.

At sixes and sevens

In a recent novel entitled ‘I am Pilgrim’, British-born writer Terry Hayes describes a jihadist plot to smuggle deadly pathogens into the United States. The plot is narrowly foiled by the modern version of super-hero: a brilliant secret agent, who saves the day – and the lives of tens of millions of Americans.

It’s fiction, of course; but it’s not far-fetched. In fact, it’s very likely that, somewhere in the Middle East, jihadists are busy plotting some version of a chemical or biological attack. After all, 9/11 has proven that for jihadists mass murder is a worthy deed; and that they are capable of careful planning and executing complex operations.

Well, I guess we should not worry too much. Bond-like secret agents may be fictional; but Her Majesty’s Government is diligently dealing with the challenge posed by jihadists. Isn’t it?

Six days of political wheeling and dealing; six hours of speech-making; six Tornado warplanes to attack ISIL in Iraq. The other side of the equation is not known yet: will it be 600 dead civilians? 6,000? 60,000?

In a press statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu re-affirmed his support for UK’s right to defend itself against incessant rocket attacks coming from Iraq. However, Mr. Netanyahu also expressed ‘deep concern’ for the large number of Iraqi casualties and called on the British government to do more to protect civilians. The Israeli Prime Minister asked Britain to act in a proportional way, in strict compliance with International Law. He called on both sides – UK and ISIL – to show restraint, avoid further escalation and negotiate an immediate ceasefire. The Israeli leader has also expressed support for the mediation efforts by North Korea. A British delegation is expected to arrive in Pyongyang, for indirect talks with a joint delegation of ISIL, Al-Nusra and the Mahdi Army.

One can and should joke. But the only laughable thing is yesterday’s decision itself.

Firstly, because it is so ineffective as to merit the description ‘much ado about nothing’. What exactly are six warplanes supposed to achieve?? How will they make a difference – ANY difference – against guerrilla fighters spread over a large territory and able to easily ‘hide in plain view’, being indistinguishable from the general population?

Secondly, because of the pathetic efforts to portray the decision as ‘ethical’ and ‘legal’. Of course, nobody (not even Al-Qaeda!) disputes that ISIL are a bunch of berserk murderers and that the world would be a more habitable place without them. Yet, to a weak leadership and a political class plagued by moral relativism, that’s not reason enough.

Having slayed, or helped to slay, a dragon, they spend their days stalking the land and looking for ever more glorious fights — but with a diminishing supply of dragons. Eventually they may be caught either swiping at thin air, identifying friends as foes — or mistaking foes for friends.

So fixated were they on trying to stop the opposition from getting any electoral support that they used their energies to suppress a film that would have brought the first-hand testimonies of raped children to wider public attention at the first possible moment.

Cases such as the gang-rape of 1400 girls in Rotherham, England often cause a media fuss for a week or so, then the fuss tends to die down. But it ought not to. Otherwise those responsible are never held to account and few of the lessons that should to be learned ever are.

Police Commissioner Shaun Wright, who presided over much of that disgrace, has done an amazing thing and actually resigned. Many of us had assumed that he would stay in his highly-paid office until his term was up, just as Joanna Simons of Oxfordshire County Council managed to stay after presiding over an identical case in her area a year ago (she subsequently offered a self-pitying “lessons have been learned” apology of her own). But welcome as it is, one resignation does not address a systemic and indeed societal, failure.

In all the recriminations and brief national soul-searching over Rotherham, there is one thing that has hardly been focused on at all: the role of radical, “far-left” organizations.

This is not meant lightly. There remains, of course, an important place in any society for genuine anti-fascist organizations. But it is possible, as noted before, for “anti-fascist” organizations to go badly wrong – indeed, to become deeply “fascistic” themselves.

There are several reasons for that. Being an anti-fascist in the 1930s, like being an anti-communist, was a noble and sometimes brave thing to be. People risked injury and worse when it came to taking on the people who wanted to take over the country. But today, while some of the older types involved in groups in the whole “anti-fascist” area, such as Searchlight Magazine, have seen some genuinely nasty stuff, such as Britain’s National Front stoking anti-black and anti-Jewish racism in its comparative heyday, the younger ones tend, thank goodness, to be running out of enemies. They suffer from what the late conservative thinker Ken Minogue once identified as the “St. George-in-Retirement Syndrome.”

Many Europeans who would laugh at the idea of negotiating with ISIS or al-Qaeda say that Israel should negotiate with Hamas.

Almost nobody sees that the invention of the “Palestinian people” has transformed millions of Arabs into a genocidal weapon to be used against the Israelis, and even, as in Europe recently, the Jews. Transforming people into a genocidal weapon is a barbaric act.

Israel was urged to find ways to coexist peacefully with people who did not want to co-exist with it. Terrorism against Israel fast became acceptable: a “good” terrorism.

Hamas’s stated aim is the destruction of Israel. Its stated way to achieve this aim is terror attacks, called “armed struggle” by Hamas leaders. To this day the Palestinian Authority has not ceased praising and promoting terrorism.

If hatred of Israel is increasing in the U.S., it is largely confined to academics and other extreme radical circles, many of which are funding or receiving funding from Soviet-style agitprop organizations. Journalists are recruited to disseminate descriptions of “facts” as if they were real facts. Pseudo-historians rewrote the history of the Middle East. The falsified version of history replaced history.

Understanding radical Islam requires going back to its roots.

The Christian idea of rendering “unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s” never existed in Islam. Its absence has had consequences, including, possibly, the decline of the Muslim civilization and the feeling of humiliation that resulted.

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when Muslim clerics observed that that the Islamic world was not keeping pace with the West and was on the verge of collapse, they may have decided they needed answers.

Some of these clerics turned to the West, where they chose to study Western political ideas. They spoke of necessary reforms, and created secret societies and nationalist organizations.

Other clerics chose dogmatic, strict readings of the Quran. They found inspiration in the writings of Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab and in the established fundamentalist movements.

As the past few weeks have, shown, hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians would rather risk their lives at sea than live under Palestinian governments and leaders whose only goal is to enrich their bank accounts.

Instead of creating job opportunities for young men and women, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority [PA] have spent the past 7 years fighting over money and power. They are now busy planning how to lay their hands on the millions of dollars that are supposed to go to the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. Hamas wants to use the PA as a tool through which the international community channels funds to he Gaza Strip — a move that would ultimately empower Hamas to tighten its grip over the Palestinian population there.

They said that Hamas officials are providing the emigrants with forged visas and travel documents to enable them to enter Europe.

Over the past few weeks, dozens of Palestinian migrants from the Gaza Strip have been killed or injured while trying to reach Europe by sea.

At least 500 Palestinians have gone missing after the boats carrying them sank in the sea. Some reports have suggested that rival gangs deliberately sunk the boats. The gangs are fighting for the cash the Palestinians are prepared to pay to leave the Gaza Strip. Palestinians refer to the situation as their “Death Boats” scandal.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com
http://blogs.jpost.com/users/just-look-us-now

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Manufacturing safe cancer treatments inside the body. Technion scientists are the first in the world to build cancer-killing chemicals whilst inside the tumor. Their system will allow chemotherapy treatments to be tailored for the patient and concentrated only where it is necessary, thus escaping the usual harsh side effects.
http://pard.technion.ac.il/cancer-treatment-on-target/

100% accurate spine surgery. There is a 10% error rate in standard (unassisted) spinal surgery, resulting in about 4% cases of permanent nerve damage. But the robots from Israel’s Mazor Renaissance ensure a perfect outcome every time. A highlight in this new video is a pole-vaulter competing six months after robotic surgery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3pY9q3yMTI&feature=youtu.be

Star Trek medical technology today. A detailed IBA news report about the medical holograms that Israel’s RealView Imaging projects straight into the hands of surgeons in the operating room.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Sx_I_dsgAdY

Unraveling the mystery of circRNA. Scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem together with the Max Dellbruck Institute in Berlin, has discovered how circular RNA is produced. The findings increase knowledge of degenerative diseases both in muscle and the brain, and eventually can help their treatment.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140918130940.htm
http://new.huji.ac.il/en/article/23245

Positive trials of cancer treatment. Israel’s Biocancell Therapeutics has reported a successful clinical trial on high-risk (specific) cancer patients. It will allow the company to proceed to a Phase III trial of its BC-819 product, which is administered together with BCG, the standard treatment.
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-biocancell-share-jumps-on-positive-cancer-trial-results-1000974326

Innovative treatment for Glaucoma. Israel’s XLVision Sciences manufactures the IOPtiMate CO2 laser treatment for severe Glaucoma sufferers. The treatment has just made its first sale in Hong Kong. (Warning the video – although only an animation – may be unsettling to some readers)
http://www.bio-light.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/First-Sale-in-HK.pdf

Oddly Gillibrand insists on living in the United States instead of in the more progressive Pakistan under the notoriously feminist Sharia law.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, appointed to her position via Senator Schumer as a favor for a politically connected clan, changed all her political positions and is working hard to pretend that she’s a serious legislator.

Mainly by repeating stupid things that other people have said.

The most animated speaker was Gillibrand, who condemned opposition to expanding paid family leave across the country.

The Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act would establish a national paid family and medical leave insurance program so workers would not have to choose between a paycheck and caring for themselves or a family member, said Gillibrand.

“In every other industrialized, wealthy country in the world they have paid leave,” the senator said. “Europe has up to six months. Even Afghanistan and Pakistan have paid leave, but we do not have paid leave in this country, and because of that when forced to meet a family need, an urgent care need, often times women are forced to leave the workplace because they cannot take that time off unpaid.”

Sure Pakistan and Afghanistan are fantastic for women.

Liberals never seem to realize that just because Third World Failed State #44 ratified their UN Treaty on the Protection of the Rights of Transsexual Penguins and added the laws to the books doesn’t mean that those laws mean anything or apply to people.

We’re being had. Again.

For six years, President Obama has endeavored to will the country into accepting two pillars of his alternative national-security reality. First, he claims to have dealt decisively with the terrorist threat, rendering it a disparate series of ragtag jayvees. Second, he asserts that the threat is unrelated to Islam, which is innately peaceful, moderate, and opposed to the wanton “violent extremists” who purport to act in its name.

Now, the president has been compelled to act against a jihad that has neither ended nor been “decimated.” The jihad, in fact, has inevitably intensified under his counterfactual worldview, which holds that empowering Islamic supremacists is the path to security and stability. Yet even as war intensifies in Iraq and Syria — even as jihadists continue advancing, continue killing and capturing hapless opposition forces on the ground despite Obama’s futile air raids — the president won’t let go of the charade.

Hence, Obama gives us the Khorosan Group.

The who?

There is a reason that no one had heard of such a group until a nanosecond ago, when the “Khorosan Group” suddenly went from anonymity to the “imminent threat” that became the rationale for an emergency air war there was supposedly no time to ask Congress to authorize.

You haven’t heard of the Khorosan Group because there isn’t one. It is a name the administration came up with, calculating that Khorosan — the –Iranian–​Afghan border region — had sufficient connection to jihadist lore that no one would call the president on it.

The “Khorosan Group” is al-Qaeda. It is simply a faction within the global terror network’s Syrian franchise, “Jabhat al-Nusra.” Its leader, Mushin al-Fadhli (believed to have been killed in this week’s U.S.-led air strikes), was an intimate of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the emir of al-Qaeda who dispatched him to the jihad in Syria. Except that if you listen to administration officials long enough, you come away thinking that Zawahiri is not really al-Qaeda, either. Instead, he’s something the administration is at pains to call “core al-Qaeda.”

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly wants a mercenary army to supply the ground forces in the latest installment of the War on Terror.

And it seems the smart set can’t stop laughing. The Washington Post’s media blogger, Erik Wemple, called it an “insane” idea and suggested that allowing O’Reilly to peddle the idea on CBS This Morning was an “insane departure from that show’s standard.” The whole spectacle, Wemple opined, proved that O’Reilly will “never be much of a thought leader in policy circles.”

It’s true that on the left and the right, O’Reilly’s idea is being scorned fairly mercilessly. That’s understandable on the left. Arguably the most hated host at the most hated news network (in large part because both are so successful), O’Reilly could come out in support of the law of gravity and the usual suspects would run the headline, “Fox Host Supports Law Requiring Babies and Puppies to Fall from Great Height When Dropped.”

And while I have nothing but respect for both my Fox News colleague Charles Krauthammer and Naval War College professor Tom Nichols — both of whom have rejected O’Reilly’s idea with much gusto — I wish people would give it a bit more thought.

Let’s back up.

Ever since 9/11, Americans have been debating the limits of war, the rules of war, the purpose of war, even the definition of war. Weeks after it had already started bombing the Islamic State, the Obama administration was still struggling with whether or not we should call a sustained military assault “war.”

Brutal hammer-and-tongs politics have made that conversation difficult enough. But what has made things all the more frustrating is that while we debate a thousand points of view internally, it is still a one-sided conversation. That’s because, for our enemies, there’s nothing to debate. They know exactly what they mean by war, and they aren’t remotely confused about whom they’re at war with or what the rules of engagement are. That’s because there are no rules for them, save those they divine from Allah. Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and their various imitators are not signatories to any international treaty, they observe none of the rules of war, and they have contempt for the opinions of what is called the international community. Islamic terrorists deliberately slaughter civilians, even proudly carving them up on camera. But on our end, we afford them rights “consistent” with the Geneva Conventions.