RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2007/08/fitzgerald-the-point-of-cnns-religious-fundamentalism-series.html

OVER AT JIHAD WATCH HUGH FITZGERALD WROTE ABOUT MS AMANPOUR’S FORAYS INTO HISTORY IN 2007….RSK
Fitzgerald: The point of CNN’s religious fundamentalism series

Christiane Amanpour has at least one parent who was part of what one would have hoped to describe as the intelligent secular ancien regime. They were the people pushed out by Khomeini and his epigones, and therefore, one would have thought, comprehending the nature of Islam. Well, it turns out that not everyone who has fled Iran quite has that necessary understanding. Some like to pretend that Khomeini is a sport, when the real sport was the Shah and his father, in their de-emphasis on Islam, their emphasis on the pre-Islamic past of Iran, and their willingness to limit the power of the mullahs — and, above all, to give the non-Muslims of Iran, the Christians, Jews, and Baha’is, reasonable security and even something akin to legal equality.

But Amanpour does not realize that. Nor, in her aggressive climb through the media ranks, has she stopped to study Islam. She has not stopped to find out what happened to the Zoroastrians or what happens to them in Iran today. She has not stopped to find out why, even in the 20th century, a Jew could be killed for going out in the rain (where a drop might ricochet off him and hit an innocent Muslim with this raindrop of najis-ness, thus contaminating him).

She might, that is, have begun with the history of Islam in Iran and considered the treatment of non-Muslims, and how Shah Abbas II overnight ordered the conversion of all the Jews and Armenians in an Iranian city (possibly Tabriz), and why the real, as opposed to the Iranian exile’s dreamy fictional history of Iran, is full of such episodes. She might have gotten hold of E. J. Browne’s work on Persian literature, and studied Hafiz and Sa’adi. She might have read Omar Khayyam, and come to realize just how un-Islamic he was. She might have read the Shahnameh of Firdowsi, and seen how his literary talent was put to work preventing the linguistic and cultural imperialism of the Arabs from successfully coming to damage and then overwhelm the Iranian culture. She might have done a special program on Islam as a vehicle of Arab cultural and linguistic imperialism, and used Iran as an example of one place where it did not succeed as it did elsewhere.

Oh, there are many things that raw-boned massive Christiane Amanpour might have done, if she had allowed herself the leisure to think, and be something more than one more media star, one more mere reporter incapable of making sense of what she reports on.

To read more: http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=462100##ixzz2EMberzQc Michael Doran is the Hertog Senior Fellow at the Saban Center at Brookings, a former senior director at the National Security Council and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense. Author of “Pan-Arabism before Nasser: Egyptian Power Politics and the Palestine Question,” Dr. Doran is currently writing a book on the […]

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/12/06/clinton-excludes-israel-again-from-counterterror-summit/ Last year, the Obama administration and State Department promoted the Global Counterterrorism Forum, but acquiesced to Turkey’s demand that Israel be excluded from the forum. Apparently, as seen by his repeated endorsements of Hamas, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan believes that terrorism is always bad, unless directed at Israelis. Last July, Rick Richman and […]

Baseball, Dennis & the French
by Jamie Glazov
Paul Croshaw discusses his new film about how listening to Dennis Prager led him to conservatism and faith.
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/jamie-glazov/baseball-dennis-the-french/

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3485/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2012 “Why these acts? Why are we not safe?” Despite promises to reform the school textbooks, the Saudi education system continues to indoctrinate children with hatred and incitement, especially against Christians and Jews. The textbooks teach — among a long list of hate-filled passages, all of which originate in the Qur’an or the Hadith — […]

http://times247.com/

Karzai blames U.S. for Afghan unrest
NBC
Thursday, December 6, 2012
News

Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2EHKHk4bg

Afghan President Hamid Karzai sharply criticized the United States, blaming American and NATO forces for some of the growing insecurity in his country. Read more…
Russia signals support for Assad is faltering
CBS News
Thursday, December 6, 2012
News

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, were to meet privately Thursday afternoon. U.S. officials tell CBS News the meeting may be a sign that Russia is now willing to consider supporting further U.N. action against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime Read more…
Germany approves Patriot missiles to Turkey
Associated Press
Thursday, December 6, 2012
News

Germany’s Cabinet on Thursday approved sending German Patriot air defense missiles to Turkey to protect the NATO member against possible attacks from Syria. Read more…

Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2EHK6kPTl

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/giulio-meotti/time-for-a-nuremberg-trial-for-hamas-and-the-pipers-of-death/print/ Back in the 1970s, law expert Yoram Dinstein argued that according to UN definitions, terrorism and incitement against Israelis constituted genocide. That’s why Israel, with the help of a few Western democracies, should set up a Nuremberg-type initiative for Palestinian terror leaders, who must be charged for inciting and committing genocide. In the name […]

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/carol-levine/a-tenured-extremist-in-israel-leads-the-campaign-to-defame-his-country-2/print/

“Here is how Ruth King from the “Americans for a Safe Israel” described Goldblum’s pseudo-poll:

As part of “surveygate,” Goldblum and his hit team insisted that if Israeli Jews favor separate roads in the West Bank for Jews and Arabs, because of the daily attempts by Arabs there to murder Jews, it shows that Jews are racists who favor an apartheid regime. The survey evidently used the term “hafrada” in Hebrew, meaning separation, a word that can also mean apartheid. So when many Israeli Jews indicated that they favor hafrada, Goldblum and his Smeartroopers had their headline: Israelis favor apartheid. Other indicators of “Jewish support for apartheid” were found by the Goldblum team when many Israeli Jews favored affirmative action preferences in hiring in favor of Jews. Never mind that the entire Left in Israel has long lobbied for racist quotas in favor of Arabs!Even the predominantly leftist Israeli press including Ha’aretz denounced Goldblum and his smear campaign, some comparing it to the lies and distortions of the UN’s “Goldstone Commission.” On October 26, 2012, the deputy editor of Maariv, Ben Dror Yemini, called Goldblum an anti-Israel anti-democratic fanatic.”

Israel has long been the target of campaigns of vilification by its own anti-Israel radical academics, enjoying their cushy salaries at Israel’s taxpayer-funded universities. Many of these individuals lead the world campaigns of economic aggression against Israel (the so-called BDS or “Boycott, Divest, Sanctions” campaign). Some openly call for Israel’s annihilation or support terrorist atrocities against Jews.

A few weeks back, one of the worst campaigns to undermine Israel’s legitimacy was launched by Amiram Goldblum, a radical leftist professor in pharmaceutical studies at the country’s Hebrew University. He is also a hater of democracy and freedom of speech. He was a founder of the radical group “Peace Now,” which demands complete and unconditional capitulation by Israel to the diktats of the Arab world. Goldblum gave an address to a forum of leftists last spring in which he called for Israel sovereignty and democracy to be suppressed by means of foreign pressures to coerce the country to agree to the far-Left’s pro-Palestinian political agenda.

Goldblum’s anti-Israel activism was suddenly thrust into the spotlight when he organized and funded a tendentious pseudo-survey of Jewish public opinion in Israel, in which he claimed that Israeli Jews support “apartheid.” The “findings” of the “survey” were quickly taken at face value by the media and especially by the bash-Israel lobby.

As it turned out, the “survey” was nothing more than a shoddy manipulative pseudo-scientific exercise in distortion. It was Goldblum’s own private personal initiative, paid for and sponsored by a fund Goldblum single-handedly manages (named after his late wife). Goldblum assembled a small group of far-leftist anti-Israel activists in Israel, only one of whom is an academic (and even he is a political scientist, not a statistician). They composed survey questions that were designed to produce responses that could be twisted into making it look like Israeli Jews are racists and supporters of apartheid.

Writing in the Israel Hayom daily, Prof. Gerald Steinberg, a world-class political scientist, denounced Goldblum and his team for the manipulation. He writes:

[A] great deal of damage has been done outside Israel, where this farce was used to further the campaign of anti-Israel political warfare and demonization….The poll that generated such attention was flawed in many dimensions. In Maariv, Ben-Dror Yemini details many of the false claims and absurd statements it contains. And in Haaretz, former Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Dr. Yehuda Ben-Meir emphasized that the actual conclusion to be drawn from the poll results was “exactly the opposite of what’s written in the article’s headline” and that the majority of Israelis were “unwilling to live in a country with an apartheid regime.” As a “push” poll used for crude political manipulation, and involving only 503 people, this survey was driven by clear political objectives. The pseudo-poll is another form of attack in this political war to demonize Israel. Responsibility for the attack, beyond Haaretz, lies with Amiram Goldblum, a founder of Peace Now, who runs the Yisraela Goldblum Fund (named after his late wife), which paid for costs, under the wider framework of the non-profit group known as “Signing Anew.” This funding, in turn, was provided by the New Israel Fund, and Goldblum is a member of NIF’s International Council. In addition, according to Goldblum’s press release, the “questions” used in this transparent political stunt were formulated by individuals closely connected to the NIF, the Durban Strategy and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. … Everyone connected with this travesty shares responsibility for the immense political damage that has been caused. Goldblum, in particular, owes the Israeli public an apology.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323501404578161483449849070.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop wise judge once wrote in dissent that the Constitution is not a suicide pact. Let us now extend that wisdom to presidential elections. Barack Obama says his election victory is a mandate to pursue the policy course he’s insisting on in negotiations with Republicans on the fiscal cliff. He wants a tax increase of […]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2012/12/05/netanyahu-abbas-israeli-settlements/1749713/

Israel’s pugnacious prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, seems most comfortable when he’s in a fight. Sometimes he fights with justification, as he did last month in retaliating for rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza, where the ruling Hamas Party fervently denies Israel’s right to exist and caters to even more extreme factions in its midst.

But in the West Bank, where the more moderate Fatah leadership has tried to negotiate a peace accord, it is Netanyahu who is the aggressor.

Last week, in a remarkable act of arrogance, the prime minister announced that he would expand Israeli settlements on a pivotal strip of Palestinian land near Jerusalem. For good measure, he said he’d withhold $100 million in tax revenue paid by Palestinians and collected by Israel.

The move, precipitated by a U.N. vote upgrading the status of Palestine, is an assault not just on the Palestinians but also on decades of U.S. efforts to secure a Middle East peace and a threat to U.S. interests in the region.

If built, the new housing would separate East Jerusalem, the prospective capital of any future Palestinian state, from the rest of the West Bank. Palestinians, already geographically divided, would see their territory cleaved again, crippling chances for the “two-state” solution at the heart of the peace process and grievously wounding American hopes for stability and improved relations with the Arab world.

Netanyahu’s excuse for this foolishness is that the United Nations had the audacity last week to grant a request from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that Palestine be granted “observer” status, which Abbas sees as an alternative route to independence. In the short term, it could put Israeli tactics against the Palestinians under tighter international scrutiny.

In our view, Abbas’ strategy is pointlessly provocative. Regardless of U.N. status, he can attain a meaningful Palestinian state only by negotiating borders and other issues with Israel.

Hamas’ control of Gaza, meanwhile, has made peace much more difficult for Israel.

But that’s no excuse for further provocation, which Netanyahu rarely resists. Since reclaiming the prime ministership in 2009, he has significantly worsened peace prospects.