http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1909 The point of no return This week, I attended a conference in Rome, jointly sponsored by the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians and the World Jewish Congress. The two-day event was the brainchild of the chairperson of the ICJP, Fiamma Nirenstein, a member of the Italian Parliament and the vice president of its foreign […]
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=270462 Only in topsy-turvy world of Carroll’s ‘Wonderland’ can elected leader suggest the establishment of his state is a crime. Alice: It would be so nice if something would make sense for a change. – From Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll The denial of the Nakba is as much a crime as the Nakba […]
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2127/Leavenworth-Ten-Are-These-Soldiers-Really-Murderers.aspx Here I am again in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in Washington, D.C., the highest appeals court for the U.S. military. Last month, I was here to cover Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna’s final appeal. Now I am waiting for Army Sgt. Evan Vela’s final appeal to begin. I glance […]
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2126/-Born-in-Kenya-The-Media-Doth-Protest-Too-Much-Pt-2.aspx
“And what of “Birtherism”? It is a purposefully nasty-sounding term that functions, as “McCarthyism” does, to shut down not just debate but thought itself. I think we should open our eyes and realize “Birtherism” describes curiosity, undergirded by a genuine concern for rule of law, for the Constitution, for the republic itself. As a society, we have permitted such curiosity and concern to be caricatured and, in effect, taken from us by the use of a bad, bad word. Not a good sign for liberty’s future.”
Again — as in the case of yesterday’s breaking news from Breitbart News that Obama’s literary agency bio described him as “born in Kenya” — the equally fascinating story is the media relationship with this new piece of evidence.
To be sure, the appearance of the “born in Kenya” bio raises more questions than it answers. Who provided the original information? Was it all a “simple mistake,” as the agency’s booklet editor Miriam Goderich now claims? Was it even a mistake?
We have no idea — yet. With Breitbart following the story today, however, we now know from a fellow client of the agency, Steve Boman, that he was asked to provide his own bio; we also now know through Internet archives that this Obama “born in Kenya” bio stood in the agency website and client list for 16 years — until two months after Obama declared himself a candidate for president in in 2007. Suddenly, “born in Kenya” changed to “born in Hawaii.”
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2125/Great-Get-But-Breitbart-Doth-Protest-Too-Much.aspx
Don’t get me wrong — kudos to Breitbart for publishing its report on a 1991 promotional booklet from a literary agency that describes client Barack Obama as “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii,” emphasis on “born in Kenya.” But what a strange apologetic the Breitbart team has produced in presenting this hot story.
The story, now the lead report at Drudge, opens with an explanatory note, kind of an how-to-read-this-story guide which is almost as notable as the story itself.
Thus:
Note from Senior Management:
Andrew Breitbart was never a “Birther,” and Breitbart News is a site that has never advocated the narrative of “Birtherism.” In fact, Andrew believed, as we do, that President Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961.
Why is this necessary? What is “Birtherism” anyway? It seems clear that Breitbart News believes it is about to commit heresy by reporting a new set of facts that contradicts the agreed-upon narrative. They are about to say something they believe they shouldn’t. They are about to report a fact about a document that has emerged which directly contradicts the president’s, the media’s, the elite’s, narrative, and they are offering a pre-emptive mea culpa for their sin against the mainstream. This is indicative of the struggle within — the Breitbart people want to be journalists, but they have so dutifully observed the restrictions of that Narrative of Authority and for so long that it hurts to color outside the lines.
You could cut the hostility with a knife. The stares, the disdain, the occasional expectoration as our group passed a cadre of Arabs as we journeyed down the narrow streets of the old city. Jerusalem, the ancient capital of the Jewish people is a beautiful place to visit if you’re willing to watch your guard […]
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/05/fatwa_islams_murder_by_fiat.html Salman Rushdie is perhaps the most celebrated person with an Islamic bounty on his head. He has been for decades. The man was condemned to death by Ayatollah Khomeini, without the least due process, for supposedly insulting Islam’s sanctities in his book The Satanic Verses. Rushdie has been living a dreadful life for decades, […]
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/42108#CurDomainURL#/blog.cfm
To honor the passing of David Littman we are re-publishing a post on “The Oeuvre of David Littman”, authored by Guy Milliere:
The Oeuvre of David Littman
by Guy Milliere
Translated and edited from the French and published April 1, 2012 in Dreuz.info.
David Littman, a man I deeply value is afflicted with a dread disease. I promised a long article on his work, and it is the least we can do, really the least because his work, in every sense of the term, is important. I owe him much. We owe so much more to him than we can imagine.
He stayed for years, out of modesty, in the shadow of his wife, the great talented Islamic scholar Bat Ye’or. But he has accomplished much on his own.
As a humanitarian, he has with immense courage, risked his life, helping Jews facing very difficult situations to escape, survive, and achieve freedom and dignity. He led an organization called Work to Save the Children in North Africa and the legendary Operation Mural the subject of a film by Yehuda Kaveh, released in 2007.
He founded with his wife, the Center for Information and Documentation on the Middle East in Geneva in 1970. He acted tirelessly, with enthusiasm, tenacity and intelligence given every opportunity, to address the worst monstrosities emanating from a grotesque institution, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. since replaced by the equally grotesque United Nations Council for Human Rights.
He has written several monographs on the situation of Jews and Christians in the Muslim world. Among these is “The Truth About the Mideast; Fourteen Fundamental Facts about Israel and Palestine,” published in 2002 in the National Review in the U.S. Ten years later, he has lost none of his incisiveness. He edited with Yehoshafat Harkabi a book of inestimable value, Arab Theologians on Jews and Israel a critical analysis of the Fourth Conference of the Academy of Islamic Research on the subject (1971), recently republished (4th ed. 2011).
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/42108#CurDomainURL#/blog.cfm
We are saddened to report the passing today after a long illness of David Littman in Geneva, Switzerland . A funeral will be held in Geneva on Wednesday, May 23rd with interment at the Jewish Cemetery in adjacent Veyrier, France. A memorial in his honor will be held subsequently.
The following is an excerpt from his biography:
David Gerald Littman was born in London on 4 July 1933. He was an historian and a human rights activist at the United Nations (Geneva) from 1986. For several years he was main representative of the World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ). In February 1992, he joined veteran human rights activist René Wadlow (editor of Transnational Perspectives), main representative of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR), then the World Federalist Movement (WFM). Since 1997 he was affilliated with of the Association of World Citizens (AWC) and the Association for World Education (AWE), for whom Littman was accredited as representative.
EDUCATION AND BACKGROUND
Littman – the youngest son of Joseph Aaron Littman – graduated in 1951 from Canford School, Dorset where he excelled more in sports than studies. A preference for history brought him to Trinity College Dublin where he earned a “Moderatores” (B.A. with honors) and an M.A. in Modern History and Political Science. From mid-October 1955, he toured historical and archaeological sites in Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel, returning to London in late March 1956. While preparing for a family business career, he decided on postgraduate studies at London University’s Institute of Archaeology, as one of two students under Kathleen Kenyon, director of the famed Jericho excavations, and Max Mallowan, head of Mesopotamian archaeology. Among other sites, he excavated at Hazor (Galilee) under Professor Yigal Yadin in the summer 1958.
In September 1959 he married Gisèle Orebi, a Cairo-born, French speaking fellow student known by her nom de plume, Bat Ye’or, who had been forced to flee Egypt in 1957 as a stateless refugee. The next year they moved to Lausanne, Switzerland. Soon after the birth of their first child, he volunteered for a delicate humanitarian mission in Morocco. From 15 March to July 24, 1961, accompanied by his wife as secretary – and their baby daughter Diana – he ran the Casablanca office of the Geneva-based international NGO for children OSE. After returning to Geneva he continued university studies, but finally abandoned all thoughts of an archaeological career in 1963 to devote more time to the family business. Two more children were born to the Littmans in 1962 and 1964.
David Littman own own body of work was impressive, as was his activism. He facilitated the early covert migration of Jewish children from Morocco to Israel in the early 1960’s known as Operation Mural for which he was to receive the “Hero of Silence” award, the highest intelligence honor from a grateful State of Israel in 2009. That exploit was the subject of a film, Operation Mural Casablanca 1961 premiered at the San Francisco Film Festival in 2007.
During the past few years several articles by David Littman were published in the New English Review.
Upon hearing of Littman’s passing we wrote Bat Ye’or:
We received word on David’s passing today after a valiant fight. He had great courage and you were unstinting to attend to his needs. He was a loving and courageous husband who shared your causes and interests. He was a magnificent defender of human rights for fellow Jews, Christians and others at the UN Human Rights Council and other public forums.
We were pleased to have known him as a colleague in the fight against Islamic Jihad and for Israel’s rightful place in the world at large.
His activism with your assistance and support enabled a great life saving migration of Moroccan Jewish children to Eretz Yisroel for which he received the highest honor and praise from the State of Israel.
His research, writings, speeches, and published body of work have the mark of scholarship with impeccable Churchillian turns of phrase.
He was a life partner in assisting your path breaking scholarship in dhimmitude, Eurabia and the rising Caliphate of fundamentalist Islam seeking to conquer the West through a Grand Jihad.
He was a boon companion and raconteur during our encounters and engagements here in America.
He was perhaps the most illustrious Jewish scholar athlete to have graduated from Trinity College, Dublin.
Our deepest rachmonis and condolences to you, your daughters and grandchildren.
We deeply miss our friend and colleague, David Littman, z”l (of blessed memory).
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/obama-354827-ever-white.html
It used to be a lot simpler. As E.C. Bentley deftly summarized it in 1905:
“Geography is about maps
But Biography is about chaps.”
But that was then, and now Biography is also about maps. For example, have you ever thought it would be way cooler to have been born in colonial Kenya?
Whoa, that sounds like crazy Birther talk; don’t go there! But Breitbart News did, and it turns out that the earliest recorded example of Birtherism is from the president’s own literary agent, way back in 1991, in the official bio of her exciting new author:
“Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.”
So the lunatic theory that Barack Obama doesn’t meet the minimum eligibility requirements to be president of the United States was first advanced by Barack Obama’s official representative. Where did she get that wacky idea from? “This was nothing more than a fact-checking error by me,” says Obama’s literary agent, Miriam Goderich, a “fact” that went so un-“checked” that it stayed up on her agency’s website in the official biography of her by-then-famous client up until 2007:
“He was born in Kenya to an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister.”
