RUTHFULLY YOURS

Is there a whiff of nostalgia eliciting a renewed interest in Menachem Begin…and now, a forthcoming biography of Zeev Jabotinsky by Hillel Halkin?

Neither Daniel Gordis, author of the splendid biography of Menachem Begin or Hillel Halkin are men of the right. In fact, the Gordis book has blurbs by Avi Shavit and Dennis Ross, more Israel’s antagonists than protagonists. And, you know it must be good because Al Ha’Aretz has alredy panned it.

What accounts for this? I would suggest that there is such a paucity of real heroes in politics today….such a dearth of principles and guts and courage to buck prevailing trends, that one must visit dead heroes. I just read a biography of General Douglas MacArthur – the last American patriot and general who fought for total surrender of an enemy and then was instrumental in the recovery of the enemy which became a modern, successful democracy. The present “nation builders” in the military should read this book as a primer on how to do it.

But back to Menachem Begin. Who were his heroes? They were the settlers of Judea and Samaria who have reclaimed Israel’s patrimony and built the lovely towns in the hills and valleys that look over Israel’s cities and present a bulwark to the ambitions of Israel’s enemies.

I was so happy to read an acknowledgement to my e-pal Yisrael Medad, journalist, commentator and patriotic resident of Shiloh in the Gordis book: Page 251

” Particular thanks go to my friend and now my teacher Yisrael Medad, Director of Information and Educational Research at the Begin Center. I have known Yisrael Medad for years, but this project afforded me an opportunity to work with him musch more closely than I ever had. He was unflagging in his support, generous with his prodigious knowledge about Begin, clear about his perspective but understanding that sometimes we did not agree, and was kind enough to read a rough draft of this manuscript and to point out mistakes where he saw them. For his extraordinary friendship I am grateful.” rsk

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

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

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Israel prize for developer of Alzheimer’s treatment. The Israel Prize for Medicine goes to Professor Marta Weinstock-Rosin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Weinstock-Rosin developed Exelon, for treating dementia related to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Exelon is currently undergoing Phase II trials.

http://www.jpost.com/Health-and-Science/Israel-Prize-in-Medicine-goes-to-Marta-Weinstock-Rosin-for-Alzheimers-Parkinsons-drugs-344017

US approval for Leukemia treatment. The US FDA has approved SYNRIBO from Israel’s Teva for the treatment of patients with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia who failed therapy using tyrosine kinase inhibitors.

http://www.tevapharm.com/Media/News/Pages/2014/1899845.aspx?year=2014

Positive results in Leukemia trials. (Thanks to Atid-EDI) Israel’s BioLineRX announced that its BL-8040 treatment for Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) stopped growth of cancer cells in-vitro and caused them to self-destruct. It also reversed any protection given to the CML cancer cells from a bone marrow transplant.

http://www.biolinerx.com/default.asp?pageid=16&itemid=259

Promoting bone cancer research. Scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have received a $62,500 grant for promising research into osteosarcoma metastasis – a bone cancer commonly found in children and young adults. Dr Rami Aqeilan and his team will explore microRNA biomarkers and responsiveness to therapy.

http://sarcomahelp.org/research/osteosarcoma-miR-27a.html?tpm=2_2#tpm2_1

Stroke treatment shows promise. Israel’s D-Pharm has announced successful interim results in the Phase IIa clinical trial of its drug THR-18 taken in conjunction with tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) for the treatment of cerebral stroke. D-Pharm’s share price rose 117%, despite the trials taking place in the Ukraine.

http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-d-pharm-doubles-on-good-interim-stroke-study-results-1000921631

Elderly and infirm can stay at home. Israeli life-science company Essence has launched Care@Home – an in-home care monitoring solution for the elderly and chronic disease sufferers. The system learns a person’s everyday routine and detects any deviations, such as skipped meals, reduced activity or unusual events.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/essence-introduces-first-ever-self-learning-eldercare-solution-to-facilitate-senior-independence-245177011.html

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Into-the-Fray-The-Zionist-Organization-of-America-a-personal-postscript-344610
ZOA’s current condition reflects the accumulative result of the incumbent president’s best efforts over the past 20 years. His reelection is unlikely to induce the change that even his proponents admit is needed.

the ZOA is in crisis today… the ZOA’s crisis isn’t about its direction. It is about its leadership…right now, the most important thing for the ZOA and the American Jewish community as a whole is for Klein to be reelected.

– Caroline B. Glick, “The ZOA’s leadership challenge,” The Jerusalem Post, March 3

This is not the topic I was hoping to deal with in this week’s column.

I had intended to devote it to a critical analysis of the (borderline anti-Semitic) interview Barack Obama gave to Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldberg on March 2.

I even had a title for it: “The bitter fruits of Bibi’s Bar-Ilan blunder.” In it I planned to show how the causal chain of events that led to the predicament in which Israel finds itself with the US administration can be traced back – link by unfortunate link – to Binyamin Netanyahu’s regrettable June 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University, when, reneging on his electoral commitments, he endorsed Israeli acceptance of Palestinian statehood.

Or perhaps, given breaking news on the spectacularly successful IDF marine interception of the Iranian rockets bound for Gaza, I would have composed a piece pointing out that — for all our unmitigated admiration for the astounding feat – the only reason such risk-fraught operations are necessary is that Israel abandoned Gaza in 2005.

But the fallout from last week’s column on the upcoming Zionist Organization of America elections in Philadelphia on March 9-10 dictates otherwise.

Compelled to respond

As readers will recall, last week I suggested that after Mort Klein’s 20-year stint as president of ZOA, it might be time for a change in leadership – particularly in light of the less-than-spectacular growth of the organization in recent years, and of what appear to be serious lapses in management and misallocation of resources.

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2783/C-PACs-Muslim-Brotherhood-Problem.aspx

One of the hallmarks of the post-9/11 years is the Western democracies’ systematic failures to analyze and debate the issues of this era of aggressively ascendant Islam — their systematic failures to connect the Islamic terrorist war on the West with the colonization of Western countries through Islamic immigration, with the clashes between Islamic and Western law and custom that occur at every nexus. This failure marks this same era of ascendant Islam as an era of Western submission.

As a conservative forum of American politics, C-PAC is no different. It may be the “mecca” of American patriots who want to defend their Constitution, but CPAC organizers have seen fit to enforce radio silence on these same issues, just as though they didn’t exist — just as though there were no threat to liberty posed by the expansion of Islam through the advance of sharia, Islam’s law. This is another feature of leadership’s abdication, cowardice and corruption — The Death of the Grown-Up and American Betrayal, both.

Read the following column, and ask yourself whether a chain of influence related to the Muslim Brotherhood might have something to do with it.

“As thousands of conservatives from across the country gather outside Washington, D.C., this week for the annual CPAC conference, they get to see and cheer on their favorite conservative all-stars and presidential hopefuls in person – Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Dr. Ben Carson, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and many more. But something else is going on. Amid the hoopla, book signings, meet and greets, speeches, panels and bands, a tense, no-holds-barred fight is under way to try to rid CPAC of a pair of influential men with track records of working with America’s enemies – Islamic organizations the U.S. government has linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and larger world of jihad.

It sounds like the setup to a thriller: Here is the pre-eminent showcase of red-meat conservatism, and at its organizational heart are movers and shakers with links to the world jihadist movement. But these are the facts as laid out in a meticulous, 40-plus-page “Statement of Facts” solemnly signed last month by former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, former U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, former U.S. representative and retired Army Lt. Col. Allen B. West, retired U.S. Navy Adm. James A. Lyons, retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former Pentagon intelligence official William G. Boykin, former Pentagon Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitz, former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, former Ambassador Henry F. Cooper, former FBI Special Agent John Guandolo and former CIA officer Clare Lopez.

These nine men and one woman sent their dossier and a letter to Cleta Mitchell, counsel of the American Conservative Union (ACU), the organization that has staged CPAC for the past 40 years. They also sent it to every member of the ACU board.

http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2014/03/teaching-for-indoctrination.html

There is a blogsite called “Discover the Networks: A Guide to the Political Left,” which is a treasure trove of well-written, well-thought out, and thoroughly documented essays on various topics which anyone concerned with contemporary political and cultural trends should read. One of the latest entries is an excellent précis on the life of Yassir Arafat as the godfather of modern Islamic terrorism. Another eye-opening column is The Islamist Infiltration of the Obama Administration, which exposes a roll call of activist Muslims hand-picked by Barack Obama and his cronies. Throughout each article are links to the writer’s “backup documentation” and cited information. I highly recommend “Discover the Networks” as a source of information and as an educational tool.

Most of the pieces are updated versions of articles that appeared elsewhere. The site is under the aegis of Freedom Center’s Neo-Conservative David Horowitz, with whom I disagree on many subjects, not least of which was his disgraceful and unapologetic treatment of Diana West and her book, American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character last year (reviewed here), and the attendant smear campaign against her, which he orchestrated and oversaw. Because Neo-Cons are against socialism, communism, and other totalitarian “isms,” but are for nothing but a vague status quo, I certainly cannot endorse Horowitz and his colleagues, and this column should not be interpreted as an unqualified endorsement of Horowitz et al. But Discover the Networks, insofar as it provides factual ammunition about what the Left and Islamist activism have been up to for over a generation, Discover the Networks (DTN) has an intrinsic value for anyone wishing to grasp current political and cultural trends.

That being said, another article captured my attention, dated February 26th, “Teaching for Change”” (TFC), which presents the history of an organization committed to “transforming” America by “transforming” the way Americans from kindergarten up through high school and college are taught American history from a Marxist perspective, and of the methods and purposes of socialist indoctrination in America’s schools. (Unfortunately, the links in the DTN article have expired; the reader is directed to TFC’s new and revamped site, here.)

Founded in 1990, Teaching for Change (TFC) is an organization that seeks to turn K-12 schools into “centers of justice where students learn to read, write, and change the world.” Moreover, it aims to transform America into a more “equitable, multicultural society” populated with “active global citizens.”

Toward these ends, TFC’s Early Childhood Equity Initiative (ECEI) sponsors professional seminars designed “to develop leaders in early childhood education,” both in metro DC and nationwide. Proceeding from the premise that the United States is a country rife with racism and discrimination against nonwhite minorities, this Initiative “embrace[s]“ an anti-racism/anti-oppression approach” that promotes “curricula, environments, programs, policies and standards that are equitable, culturally-responsive and linguistically consistent with the diverse communities served by our profession.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/03/delay_obamacare_till_the_3016_election.html President Obama just ordered yet another delay of ObamaCare, to hide its damage till after the 2016 election. Clearly, Democrats don’t want it, Republicans hate it, and the American people despise it – yet it remains the law. So I have a simple suggestion. Congress should unanimously vote to delay ObamaCare till after the […]

http://sarahhonig.com/

It’s not often that when a defendant is sentenced to do time behind bars he exclaims jubilantly. But that’s precisely what happened last week when Islamic Movement Northern Branch leader Sheikh Raed Salah – an Israeli-Arab, former mayor of Umm el-Fahm and a convicted Hamas collaborator – was handed down an eight-month term for inciting to violence in 2007.

Salah had then orchestrated riots against archeological rescue-digs and a new pedestrian bridge near the Temple Mount. He accused Jews of “eating bread dipped in children’s blood.” He praised and eulogized terrorist murderers. He threatened anyone who claims any Jewish connection to the Western Wall, “even to just one stone.” Thereafter, Salah has been regularly holding “Save al-Aksa” rallies dedicated to the incendiary calumny that Israel is out to demolish the Muslim compound atop Temple Mount.

His ultra-light sentence inspired him to shout insolently in open court: “Blessed is God – I got off cheap!”

He certainly did and therefore his rejoicing. It wasn’t a sarcastic pose. Salah had cause for celebration. Considering his history, he rightly expected far worse.

Not only was Israeli justice incomprehensibly slow, but yet again, it plainly allowed Salah to escape serious penalty despite a long and brazenly escalating record of outright sedition. He had once more defeated the system and exposed Israel’s lack of deterrence – indeed its utter reluctance to confront him. Hence he can carry on his overt subversion and rabble-rousing with impunity.

http://gopthedailydose.com/2014/03/08/nasa-scientists-in-letter-to-congress-climate-change-a-non-issue-not-real/

B. Hussein Obama affirmed in his most recent State of the Union address that the science on climate change is settled. He seems to have that part right, it was the second part of his comment that was wrong.

Real experts, not politicians making claims or United Nations-paid pretenders say that man-made global warming, also called Anthropogenic Global Warming or AGW is not a threat to anyone and may or may not exist. If it does, the level to which it can possibly impact the earth is so small as to be inconsequential. They estimate its impact to be a maximum possible temperature rise of 1.2 degrees over the next three hundred years.

That is the opinion of a group of scientists, who were among those that helped but Neil Armstrong on the moon and who now volunteer their time and considerable talents to reviewing the science of “climate change.”

Their group is called “The Right Climate Stuff” research team and they number in excess of 20 scientists who are primarily retired members of America’s manned space program. They formed and began their investigating work in 2012, and have issued reports in 2013 and 2014.

They have also written to and offered their services to Congress in an effort to rein in the madness of the “Chicken Little” administration.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304255604579408993756645898?utm_source=Begin+the+Counterrevolutionary+–+A+Wall+Street+Journal+Review&utm_campaign=Begin+WSJ+Review&utm_medium=email
HILLEL HALKIN’S BIOGRAPHY OF VLADIMIR JABOTINSKY WILL BE PUBLISHED IN MAY 2014…..UNTIL THEN READ THIS MAGNIFICENT BIOGRAPHY…..

A pair of events, neither of which occurred at a chronological midpoint in Israel’s history, nevertheless divide that history in two. The first was the Six Day War of 1967. The second was Menachem Begin’s electoral victory of 1977. Both came unexpectedly, both launched Israel on unforeseen trajectories and both had immense consequences that the country is still struggling to cope with.

These events, though 10 years apart, were closely connected. Begin, a loser in eight prior national elections, would never have won the prime ministership on his ninth try without the ’67 war. It bestowed on him-a right-wing leader despised and shunned by Israel’s ruling establishment until asked to join a national unity cabinet as war threatened-a political respectability he hadn’t had before. It transformed his Herut Party’s platform, which called for Jewish rule in all of Palestine, from an apparent fantasy to a reality. It awakened a wave of repressed sentiment for places-the Old City of Jerusalem, Hebron, the hill country of Judea and Samaria-that, though an integral part of the Jewish people’s biblical heritage, had been written off as permanently lost by all but Begin’s most fanatic followers. And it led directly to the surprise Egyptian and Syrian attack in 1973, whose initial debacle and terrible losses turned Israelis against the Labor Zionist leadership they had trusted since the nation’s founding in 1948. It made them ready for a change.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/putins-contempt-for-obama-on-the-glazov-gang/

This week’s Glazov Gang was joined by Igor Melcuk, a Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Montreal and Member of the Royal Society of Canada. A scientist and “reluctant” Soviet dissident, he left the Soviet Union in 1977 after being expelled from the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences because he defended Andrei Sakharov​ in a letter published in The New York Times​.

Prof. Melcuk joined the Gang to discuss Putin’s Contempt For Obama. The discussion occurred in the context of Putin’s Ukraine Gamble. Prof. Melcuk explained what Putin is really after, who and what he really fears, and why he laughs in the Radical-in-Chief’s face: