RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/
In his latest article via the antipodean J-Wire service (entitled “Palestine – Semantic Skullduggery Sinks Solutions”) Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer considers the meaning and impact of certain words and phrases.Writes David Singer:

‘The Palestinian Authority (PA) Ministry of Information has now issued a book instructing Palestinian Arabs on the words they should use to replace ” the Israeli and American dissemination of poisoned terms”.

Palestinian Arabs are encouraged to use terms that indicate that Israel is the result of “a racist, colonialist endeavor,” and the book instructs Palestinians never to use the name “Israel” alone but instead to use the term “Israeli colonialism”.

To use “Israel” by itself is damaging, according to the PA, because to do so “describes Israel as a natural state”.

Whilst most of the misleading and deceptive terms to be employed are not new – the book highlights official PA approval and acceptance of the use of such terms in the semantic war that has been ongoing for the last 130 years – alongside the actual conflict that has been played out between Jews and Arabs during that period.

For example – the use of the term “West Bank” was introduced by Jordan in 1950 to replace the biblical names “Judea and Samaria” – names that had been used throughout the centuries and were still being used by the British Mandate authorities in 1948. This change of name has been an effective propaganda tool in trying to erase any Jewish connection with and entitlement to these areas after they were occupied by Jordan in the 1948 War of Independence and subsequently lost by Jordan to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War
Similarly the use of the term “freedom fighter” instead of the term “terrorist” has had an impact on the way the Jewish-Arab conflict has been perceived.

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/

The Kotel: For UNESCO, just a separation wall

This is how UNESCO in its World Wonders Project describes Jerusalem, the holiest of Judaism’s four holy cities, and the Western Wall, Judaism’s sacred site there, to which throughout the centuries (except when put out of bounds to them) Jews have flocked to pray:

“As a holy city for Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Jerusalem has always been of great symbolic importance. Among its 220 historic monuments, the Dome of the Rock stands out: built in the 7th century, it is decorated with beautiful geometric and floral motifs. It is recognized by all three religions as the site of Abraham’s sacrifice. The Wailing Wall delimits the quarters of the different religious communities, while the Resurrection rotunda in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre houses Christ’s tomb.”

Notice the silence regarding the biblical significance of Jerusalem, the City of David.

Notice the use of the old term “Wailing Wall”, which is usually avoided nowadays. No doubt mention of the “Western Wall” would have had to have been followed by something like “which is all that remains of the Second Temple, built about 19 BCE on the site of the very much earlier one built by King Solomon.”

That would have been a reminder of its antiquity, and of the ancient Jewish presence in the Land, and that would never do.

For, needless to say, this terse, inadequate description is hardly an accident, hardly an innocent error by some bumbling, ignorant clerical assistant on UNESCO’s staff.

The entire passage constitutes an exercise in politically motivated historical revisionism, an ignoble and deliberate censorship regarding Jerusalem: its pivotal importance in Jewish history, in Judaism, and in the Jewish psyche.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ A lawless society is a depressing place to live because it’s a place completely without law. And while going lawless might be appealing, we aren’t talking about an end to laws requiring you to wear bicycle helmets or drink small sodas. Not even laws ordering you to pay recycle, pay taxes and join up […]

Just in case you were thinking there’s no way Romney could blow this thing … http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/ Obama issues an executive order that is his most egregious assault yet on the separation-of-powers foundation of our constitutional system, regardless whether the subject matter was immigration or tiddlywinks, and Mitt Romney’s big problem with it is — wait […]

http://pjmedia.com/claudiarosett/ahmadinejad-in-rio/?print=1 It is by now a scene so familiar it’s become routine. At your expense, dear taxpayers of the planet — and especially at the expense of all you colonialist, imperialist, capitalist taxpayers of the United States — the United Nations holds a huge gathering. Eminences and excellencies jet in from around the globe, and […]

William Hazlitt on Barack Obama, Or: Why the Ridiculous Is no Laughing Matter

http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2012/06/23/william-hazlitt-on-barack-obama-or-why-the-ridiculous-is-no-laughing-matter/?singlepage=true

“Those who lack delicacy,” Hazlitt observed, “hold us in their power.” All rumors to the contrary, and despite the principle enunciated by Jorgé Luis Borges that allows us to speak of such prodigies as Wordsworth’s influence on Milton, Hazlitt was not writing about Barack Obama. Yet he might have been, just as he might have been writing about Obama and his administration (calling you, Eric Holder) that “gentlemen are no match for blackguards.” The reason is not far to seek. “The former,” Hazlitt explains, “are on the their honour, act on the square,” while the latter, . . . well, you know.

A gentleman, for example, does not lie under oath. On September 7th, 2011, Eric Holder denied to Darrell Issa’s congressional committee that knowledge of Fast and Furious, the convert gun-walking program that left dozens of Mexican’s and U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry dead, did not reach “into the upper levels of the Justice Department.” “I don’t think,” said the attorney general, that is is “supported by the facts.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/an_iron_curtain_descends_on_islamistan.html “An Iron Curtain has descended over half of Europe” said Winston Churchill’s in his historic Iron Curtain speech of 1946. It was ominous news for the West, but millions of people at that time were adult enough to listen. Unfortunately, we do not live in a time for adults today. We have certifiable ignoramuses […]

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/reinvigorated_islam.html Trauma, viruses, or bacteria cause the death of a biological entity. Viruses and bacteria are major killers of human beings and present great challenges to medicine. They can be deadly and have the uncanny ability to mutate. Yet they are there for their mission of ending life. Life exists due to balance: body and […]

http://www.timesofisrael.com/iraqi-government-to-the-united-states-return-our-torah-scrolls/

Iraq to the United States: Give us back our Torahs and Talmuds Baghdad officials claim the US took away thousands of ancient Babylonian artifacts in 2006
By Elhanan Miller

The United States has taken hold of 90 percent of Iraq’s national
archives, and is refusing to return thousands of precious Jewish
documents and manuscripts, Iraqi government officials are claiming.

According to Iraq’s Ministry of Culture, in 2006, American authorities
received some 3,000 ancient documents and 1,700 artifacts dating back
to the Babylonian era through an agreement with Iraq’s Antiquities
Authority for the purpose of restoration. However, the officials now
say, the US is still “holding the artifacts prisoner” in what they
term “a cultural Guantanamo.”

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/06/22/green-drivel

Two months ago, James Lovelock, the godfather of global warming, gave a startling interview to msnbc.com in which he acknowledged he had been unduly “alarmist” about climate change.The implications were extraordinary.

Lovelock is a world-renowned scientist and environmentalist whose Gaia theory — that the Earth operates as a single, living organism — has had a profound impact on the development of global warming theory.Unlike many “environmentalists,” who have degrees in political science, Lovelock, until his recent retirement at age 92, was a much-honoured working scientist and academic. His inventions have been used by NASA, among many other scientific organizations.

Lovelock’s invention of the electron capture detector in 1957 first enabled scientists to measure CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and other pollutants in the atmosphere, leading, in many ways, to the birth of the modern environmental movement.