http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/01/29/governor-perry-returns-money-to-taxpayers-touts-education-reforms/ Fresh from delivering his State of the State address, Texas Gov. Rick Perry spent more than half an hour on a conference call with state bloggers. Perry hailed bloggers as “pioneers of the new media” as he described his take on current issues. Texas’ longest-serving governor could go down in Texas history as the […]
http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/01/25/the-gatekeepers-keeps-information-from-viewers/?print=1
PLEASE ALSO READ:
WILL THEY GIVE OSCARS FOR BASHING ISRAEL? LORI LOWENTHAL MARCUS
http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/will-they-give-oscars-for-bashing-israel-lori-lowenthal-marcus.html
The Gatekeepers — currently Oscar-nominated for Best Documentary, opening February 1 in New York and Los Angeles — is a movie that could only have been made in Israel.
Six former heads of Shin Bet, the Israeli agency dealing with domestic terrorism, each spent 12-15 hours in filmed conversations with Israeli filmmaker Dror Moreh, who spliced excerpts into a 97-minute film dramatized with archival footage and animated recreations. At the end, Moreh shows some of the “gatekeepers” saying Israel is winning battles but losing the war; that the use of force can never be wholly successful and eventually degrades those who use it; and that Israel is in danger of becoming “a Shin Bet state.”
It is a well-made, thought-provoking film, but the conclusions in the last two minutes are not entirely supported by the 95 minutes that precede them. In significant ways, they are in fact contradicted by at least one of the “gatekeepers” — Avi Dichter, who served under Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon from 2000 to 2005. Dichter summarizes Moreh’s apparent position: if we use force against the Palestinians, they will use force against us; and if we stop using force, they will stop using force. Dichter tells him the first part of the equation is true, but that the second is not.
In another exchange, recounted by Moreh at a recent screening, Dichter recalled receiving a 5 a.m. call with intelligence that a terrorist would bomb a bus later that morning, while Israelis were commuting; someone was found who fit the description of an alleged accomplice, but he was unwilling to talk; you have two hours, Dichter said, to find a person on his way to perpetrate a mass murder. So what do you do? At the screening, Moreh did not hazard an answer; and the non-response reflects the lack of easy answers to the issues in the film.
The film’s press materials claim that “for the first time ever,” the former Shin Bet heads are sharing their insights publicly, and Moreh says he was “startled” they agreed to talk to him. But in fact they have spoken publicly before — in a two-hour joint interview in 2003, published at the time in Israel’s largest newspaper, Yedioth Aharonoth, in which the “gatekeepers” expressed the same conclusions. The 2003 interview was instrumental in influencing Ariel Sharon to withdraw from Gaza — with results different from those confidently predicted at the time. But the 2003 interview goes unmentioned and unaddressed in the The Gatekeepers.
http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/5847/features/raider-of-the-lost-knish/?print I took the knish for granted; then it was gone. More than latkes, matzah or the chopped-apple-and-walnut haroset that crowned the seder plate, knishes were our religion. My family went on Brooklyn-Queens Expressway pilgrimages to Mrs. Stahl’s Knishes of Brighton Beach and harbored the findings in our freezer. My parents ushered knishes into the […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/i-feel-like-a-stranger-where-i-live?f=puball
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9831912/I-feel-like-a-stranger-where-I-live.html
As new figures show ‘white flight’ from cities is rising, one Londoner writes a provocative personal piece about how immigration has drastically changed the borough where she has lived for 17 years
by JANE KELLY
“When you go swimming, it’s much healthier to keep your whole body completely covered, you know.” The Muslim lady behind the counter in my local pharmacy has recently started giving me advice like this. It’s kindly meant and I’m always glad to hear her views because she is one of the few people in west London where I live who talks to me.
The streets around Acton, which has been my home since 1996, have taken on a new identity. Most of the shops are now owned by Muslims and even the fish and chip shop and Indian takeaway are Halal. It seems that almost overnight it’s changed from Acton Vale into Acton Veil.
Of the 8.17 million people in London, one million are Muslim, with the majority of them young families. That is not, in reality, a great number. But because so many Muslims increasingly insist on emphasising their separateness, it feels as if they have taken over; my female neighbours flap past in full niqab, some so heavily veiled that I can’t see their eyes. I’ve made an effort to communicate by smiling deliberately at the ones I thought I was seeing out and about regularly, but this didn’t lead to conversation because they never look me in the face.
I recently went to the plainly named “Curtain Shop” and asked if they would put some up for me. Inside were a lot of elderly Muslim men. I was told that they don’t do that kind of work, and was back on the pavement within a few moments. I felt sure I had suffered discrimination and was bewildered as I had been there previously when the Muslim owners had been very friendly. Things have changed. I am living in a place where I am a stranger.
I was brought up in a village in Staffordshire, and although I have been in London for a quarter of a century I have kept the habit of chatting to shopkeepers and neighbours, despite it not being the done thing in metropolitan life. Nowadays, though, most of the tills in my local shops are manned by young Muslim men who mutter into their mobiles as they are serving. They have no interest in talking to me and rarely meet my gaze. I find this situation dismal. I miss banter, the hail fellow, well met chat about the weather, or what was on TV last night.
More worryingly, I feel that public spaces are becoming contested. One food store has recently installed a sign banning alcohol on the premises. Fair enough. But it also says: “No alcohol allowed on the streets near this shop.” I am no fan of street drinking, and rowdy behaviour and loutish individuals are an aspect of modern British ”culture’’ I hate. But I feel uneasy that this shopkeeper wants to control the streets outside his shop. I asked him what he meant by his notice but he just smiled at me wistfully.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/not-understanding-whats-going-on-in-iran-obama-croons-war-is-not-the-answer About two-thirds the way through U.S. President Barack Obama’s second inaugural speech, he echoed words spoken almost 75 years earlier by another world leader; words that would soon ring hollow for all who heard them. In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned to London after meeting with Germany’s Adolf Hitler in Munich. A […]
http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/black-bloc-must-die-say-jihad-and-jama-al-islamiya Black Bloc must die, say Jihad and Jama’a al-Islamiya The Islamist party of the Jihad Organization and Jama’a al-Islamiya has said the ways of dealing with banditry specified in the Quran must be applied to Black Bloc members, which means they must be killed. “God orders us to kill, crucify or cut off the […]
http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/01/29/new-york-congresswoman-leads-opposition-to-release-of-terrorist-who-killed-israeli-diplomat/#
GRACE MENG DEFEATED DAN HALLORAN ONE OF THE BEST CANDIDATES OF 2012….SHE IS ON THE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE WITH LITTLE EXPERIENCE. HER QUESTION TO HILLARY AT THE BENGHAZI HEARINGS STARTED WITH SOME NINNY VALENTINES AND COMMENTS ABOUT BEING A MOM ETC. BUT HER QUESTION WAS GOOD….ABOUT COMBATTING “RADICALISM” IN AFRICA. HER CO-SIGNATORIES ON THIS LETTER INCLUDE TRENT FRANKS (A GOOD GUY) BUT ALSO THE 2 MOST REPUL SIVE MEMBERS OF CONGRESS…..DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ AND JAN SCHAKOWSKY….RSK
.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) announced Sunday that she has spearheaded a bipartisan letter calling on the French government to cancel plans to release a convicted terrorist who was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of an American and an Israeli diplomat.
The letter, which was sent to France’s Ambassador to the United States, urges French officials to stop the release of George Ibrahim Abdallah, the former head of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Brigade who was convicted in 1987 of killing an Israeli diplomat and a U.S. military attaché. The U.S. State Department has also expressed its opposition to Abdallah’s release.
“As we continue to grieve the loss of Ambassador Stevens, we cannot stand idly by while an ally frees the murderer of another American in diplomatic service,” said Meng, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “Abdallah’s life sentence was necessary when given in 1987, and recent events have reaffirmed the appropriateness of this sentence. If released to Lebanon, Abdallah could very well resume his acts of terror, and target citizens of France, the United States, and other allied nations. We must stand firm and united against the threat of terrorism. Abdullah must remain locked-up for the rest of his life.”
The letter’s signatories include: Meng, Frank Wolf (R-VA), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Henry Waxman (D-CA), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Joseph Crowley (D-NY), Steve Israel (D-NY), Gerald Connolly (D-VA), David Cicilline (D-RI), Albio Sires (D-NJ), Juan Vargas (D-CA), Bill Johnson (R-OH), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Randy Weber (R-TX), Steven Palazzo (R-MS), Ken Calvert (R-CA), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Lois Frankel (D-FL).
http://www.jns.org/latest-articles/2013/1/17/how-the-press-soft-pedaled-hitler.html
TODAY’S MEDIA SOFT PEDALS JIHAD AND SHARIA…..RSK
“There is at least one official voice in Europe that expresses understanding of the methods and motives of President Roosevelt—the voice of Germany, as represented by Chancellor Adolf Hitler.”
That incredible statement was the opening line of a flattering feature story about the Nazi leader that appeared on the front page of the New York Times in 1933, and was typical of some early press coverage of Hitler, who rose to power 80 years ago on Jan. 30.
Hitler’s ascent caught much of the world by surprise. As late as May 1928, the Nazis had won less than 3 percent of the vote in elections to the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament, and the Nazi party’s candidate for president received barely 1 percent of the votes in March 1929. But as Germany’s economic and social crises worsened, the Nazis garnered 18.3 percent of the vote in the parliamentary election of July 1930. They doubled that total two years later, becoming the largest party in the Reichstag.
Negotiations between the Nazis and other parties then produced a coalition government, with Hitler as chancellor. The Nazis celebrated with a huge torchlight parade through the streets of Berlin on the night of Hitler’s appointment, Jan. 30, 1933.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4337707,00.html BERLIN – Even in the supposedly redemptive days of Barack Obama, Americans and Israelis traveling abroad have grown sadly accustomed to outbursts of anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism and worse. But it’s uncommon for Americans, Israelis and Jews to find themselves insulted in the pages of one of Germany’s most respected magazines and news outlets. Take the […]
http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2013/01/29/the-cfrs-steven-cook-misrepresents-me/
Steven Cook, the Council on Foreign Relations’ main expert on Egypt, posted an inaccurate and unprincipled attack on me today at the CNN “Global Public Square” blog.
“An objective observer,” Dr. Cook writes of Egypt’s present crisis, “might come to the reasonable conclusion that Egypt needs help and that the international community should do what it can to help pull Egyptians back from the brink. That is certainly the view of most analysts from across the political spectrum, yet in one corner of the commentariat [namely mine], they are actually hoping for Egypt to fail.”
On the contrary: I believe that the foreign policy establishment (including Dr. Cook) is engaged in a hapless and counterproductive effort to save the unsalvageable. That is my assessment as a specialist in country risk with thirty years’ experience, including a stint as Bank of America’s global head of bond research. I never wrote that an Egyptian collapse was desirable, only that it was inevitable. I might be wrong, but this week’s events in Egypt surely do not make me look wrong.
Dr. Cook refers specifically to my Jan. 22 essay, “Denial still is a river in Egypt,” in which I argue that Egypt’s economic collapse has made the largest Arab state ungovernable. He denounces as “a-historic revisionism” my “claim that economic collapse was the reason for the uprising.” Revisionism? I have been arguing since February 2011 that the global spike in food prices undermined Egypt, which imports half its food. I wrote back then:
Even Islamists have to eat. It is unclear whether President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt will survive, or whether his nationalist regime will be replaced by an Islamist, democratic, or authoritarian state. What is certain is that it will be a failed state. Amid the speculation about the shape of Arab politics to come, a handful of observers, for example economist Nourel Roubini, have pointed to the obvious: Wheat prices have almost doubled in the past year.
