RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/300298/obama-barnard-and-women-mona-charen

BARNARD HAS ALREADY DISGRACED ITSELF…..SEE: http://barnard.edu/provost/worklife/diversity-and-development and by granting tenure to Nadia Abu El Haj whose shoddy scholarship in 2001 concluded by accusing Israel of “formation and enactment of its colonial-national historical imagination and…the substantiation of its territorial claims”.

The president dropped by Barnard College (my alma mater) this week to deliver the commencement address. It wasn’t long-planned. No, the college had lined up a woman speaker — Jill Abramson, editor of the New York Times. But in March, as part of the “war on women” gambit, the White House decided it needed a friendly, female audience before whom the president could strut his feminist stuff. Barnard, bastion of women’s rights, dumped the Times gal for him in a New York minute.

The speech got scant coverage. The main takeaway seemed to be that a member of the audience shouted out that Obama should do the “moonwalk” when he happened to mention it. Thrilling. The press is keen to remind us that Obama remains cool to the kids. Chris Matthews, call your office.

I don’t care for cool. I’d prefer competent. But as someone who once sat where the graduates were (Toni Morrison was our speaker), I was curious to see what the president would do with the opportunity.

President Obama graduated from Columbia (Barnard’s brother school) in 1983. Unwisely, in my judgment, the president reminisced: “We too were heading out into a world at a moment when our country was still recovering from a particularly severe economic recession. It was a time of change. It was a time of uncertainty.”

Yes, but in 1983, thanks to “Reaganomics,” the economy was adding 430,000 jobs per month. What was the job-growth figure for April, again? Wasn’t it 115,000? And hasn’t the population grown by 25 percent since 1983?

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/300322/cotton-rises-arkansas-brian-bolduc
BRIAN BOLDUC

This fall, Republicans hope to claim Arkansas’s 4th Congressional District, one of the few Democratic redoubts in the South. Six-term incumbent Mike Ross is retiring, and the state legislature has redrawn the district’s lines to incorporate more Republican-friendly territory. In other words, it’s ripe for a pickup. And newcomer Tom Cotton may be just the man to win it.

The Republican primary has been a hard-fought contest between the 2010 GOP nominee, Beth Anne Rankin, and Cotton, an Iraq War veteran. But in the latest Talk-Business–Hendrix College poll, Cotton has posted an 18-point lead, 51–33, over Rankin. A third candidate, John Cowart, earns only 6 percent. If Cotton wins over 50 percent of the vote, he’ll secure the nomination; if Rankin holds him under that threshold, the race will go to a runoff.

“Obviously, our campaign plan is to win on May 22,” Rankin tells NRO, but “I do think it will be a nail-biter.”

“I wouldn’t venture a prediction; I’m in the candidate’s role, not the pundit’s,” Cotton says. “But we’re certainly working hard every day to turn out our voters. It’s going to be close.”

If there is a runoff, the race will largely focus on the candidates’ personalities, as it has already. “We’ve had seven debates,” Rankin notes. “In these seven debates, we’ve seen two cents on the dollar in terms of variance on the issues. As far as what’s been publicly stated, I don’t see a huge difference between the three candidates.” All three oppose Obamacare, cap-and-trade, and Dodd-Frank, and all three support a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/18/how-islam-killed-greco-roman-civilization

“WHERE ISLAM ENTERS CIVIL SOCIETY SOON EXITS……

A number of books published in recent years have demolished the myth of an allegedly tolerant Islamic culture that preserved the Greco-Roman heritage. Ibn Warraq’s book Why the West Is Best is among the better and more accessible titles in this field. As I concluded in one of my earlier essays, the only part of the ancient Greek heritage that proved to be more compatible with Muslim than with Christian European culture was slavery, and possibly anal sex with young boys in certain parts of the Islamic world.

In early 2012 the historian Emmet Scott published Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited: The History of a Controversy. If you have any interest in the subject of the Greco-Roman legacy and Islam as they relate to medieval Europe, I strongly recommend that you buy this book. For those who are interested, Scott has published some excerpts from this work online at the New English Review.

Many books claim to be groundbreaking, but rather few of them actually are. Emmet Scott’s Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited falls into the latter category.

He shows convincingly that archaeological excavations paint a very clear picture of devastation brought by the Arab conquests throughout the entire Mediterranean region, from Syria to Spain, in the seventh century AD.

The Belgian historian Henri Pirenne in his work Mohammed and Charlemagne, published posthumously in 1937, suggested that Islam and the Arab conquests constituted the real dividing line between the civilization of Greco-Roman Antiquity and that of medieval Europe. Moreover, Islamic raids in the Mediterranean partially cut Europeans off from their Classical roots. Scott supports this hypothesis but goes even further than Pirenne — who focused on Europe — by showing that the Arab conquests and Islamic repression largely destroyed Greco-Roman Classical civilization in North Africa and parts of the Middle East, which were more urbanized than Europe.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/18/israel-to-hizbullah-next-time-we-fight-to-win/ This week AFP published an important report that shouldn’t slip under the radar. It quotes a “senior military official in Israel’s northern command” saying that, while Hizbullah may not want another war with Israel, Iran would order it to attack Israel in case of an Israeli strike on Iran. In that case, says the […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/where-brother-kills-brother-for-love-of-fanatical-islam  It was Feb. 25, 1991. The sun was yet to rise on the second day of the Gulf War’s ground offensive. Just before daybreak, there was a surprise encounter between one U.S. Marine tank company and three Iraqi tank companies. The ensuing battle involved top-of-the-line tanks on both sides — the Marines equipped with […]

http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2012/05/sand-shlomo-in-our-zionist-faces.html
Sand (Shlomo) in Our Zionist Faces
I preliminarily treated Shlomo Sand’s new book with its second-tier assault on Jewish nationalism here. Elder of Ziyon also had a whack. But to disprove the Sand thesis, or one of his theses, as highlighted over at +972, which is about a “fantasized homeland”, supposedly, which is

the concept of a place which is under Jewish sovereignty, and yearning for such a place. “Eretz Israel” is, originally, a Talmudic concept – not a biblical one – which delineates it as a territory that imposes extra religious obligations on Jews living in it, which Jews living outside of it are unburdened of

The concept of a land, of borders, of tribal division are all in the Bible. For example, read Yigal Levin’s article or that of Amos Frisch to see how deeply embedded in the Jewish people’s consciousness and nationalist ethos was the concept of a “land” besides the various multitude of mitzvot intricately connected with the “land” (see here; and here).

But I will not confront this issue but rather give you my reactions to a few matters I caught in the first few pages of his book to illustrate how problematic it is.

a. the book is dedicated to the residents of Sheikh Munis who were “uprooted long ago from the place I now live and work”. The village is located where Tel Aviv Universty now is. In other words, Sand polarizes the Land of Ishmael to the Land of Israel even before we get to page one.

A time to fly, a time to say goodbye

http://www.jpost.com/

In exclusive interview with the ‘Post,’ outgoing IAF chief Ido Nehushtan shares his views on Israel’s current, future threats.

In the summer of 1967, during the Six Day War, Ido Nehushtan climbed to the roof of his family’s home in Jerusalem and watched as Israel Air Force fighter jets flew overhead on their way to bomb Jordanian targets near Bethlehem .For the 10-year-old Nehushtan, the sight of the planes and their amazing power planted in him the seed that would lead him to enlist eight years later in the IAF. He became a career soldier, climbing the ranks until eventually he became commander of the IAF, possibly one of the most prestigious positions in Israel.

Nearly 45 years after watching those fighter jets in Israel’s most remarkable war, Nehushtan stepped down this week from command over the IAF, ending a 37-year career in the military. In an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post, Nehushtan, a mixture of diplomat and fighter pilot, radiates confidence, but at the same time concern, as he thinks back to that day in 1967.

No one, he says, questions the existence of other countries, such as India, for example.

http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/05/17/cover-story-why-bibi-netanyahu-is-king-of-israel/

Why Bibi Netanyahu Is King of Israel
THOSE OF US MORE CYNICAL SEE THIS COALITION AS ONE PREPARED TO MAKE SERIAL AND DANGEROUS CONCESSIONS UNDER THE FIG LEAF OF BEING “RIGHT WING AND UNCOMPROMISING.”…..RSK

The deal deflects calls for fresh elections and gives him a virtual lock on Israel’s top job going forward.

As Stengel puts it:

Netanyahu is poised to become the longest-serving Israeli Prime Minister since David Ben-Gurion, the founding father of Israel. He has no national rival. His approval rating, roughly 50%, is at an all-time high. At a moment when incumbents around the world are being shunted aside, he is triumphant.

Netanyahu, as Stengel writes, stands on history’s cusp: “The question is whether he is a prisoner of that history or he can write a new narrative.” He bears with him the memory of his military service—and the even more painful memory of the death of his elder brother Yoni, a celebrated Israeli commando. He also carries with him the legacy and learning of his father, the late Benzion Netanyahu, a noted, uncompromising Zionist academic.

Like his father, he sees Jewish history as a succession of holocausts. Like his father, he has an almost mystical belief in the abiding power of anti-Semitism, as though it were more biological than cultural.

http://sarahhonig.com/2012/05/18/another-tack-every-man-for-himself/

It’s official. A brand new Three Stooges remake is well under way. The sequel stooges have just banded together in a mutually advantageous alliance to fortify the governing coalition of the Jewish state – the ultimate setting to best suit their zany misadventures. For one thing, it’s quite compatible with the ethnicity of the original trio – brothers Moe and Curly (born Horwitz) and Larry who was a Feinberg.

But more important is the fact that there’s nowhere like Israel’s madcap political arena to accentuate the knucklehead anarchic antics of the jerks-of-all-trades (as yesteryear’s screwballs dubbed themselves). With them around there’s never a dull moment. They keep unsettling all and sundry, themselves foremost.

Stepping into Moe’s shoes is Binyamin Netanyahu even though he doesn’t sport a soup ball haircut and even if he hasn’t exactly been poking at politicos’ eyes, whacking sidekicks with skillets and crunching the noses of cronies with neurotic, hyperactive zest.

But though deficient in Moe’s bully brass, Bibi is nonetheless the uncontested leader of the new threesome and their belated bond has only confirmed and boosted his primacy like never before. For better or worse, Bibi is recognized both near and far as the (for now) indisputable boss. He looks in charge, at the top of his game and unbeatable. But could he be in for nasty surprises?

60 Minutes Veils Education Jihad By Janet Levy

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/05/60_minutes_veils_education_jihad.html

While the mainstream media continues to promote Turkey as a successful example of the coexistence of Islam, democracy, and economic stability — referring to the country as “a bridge between East and West” and a potential asset to the European Union — this view couldn’t be farther from reality.

In fact, Turkey has descended farther into the abyss of Islamization as it continues to refuse to acknowledge its genocide of Armenians, Assyrians, Greek Christians, and other minorities; denies its decades-long repression of its Kurdish population; and persists in its illegal occupation of the Republic of Cyprus. Islamic instruction, under the guise of religious culture and ethics classes, has become mandatory in state schools, further signaling the demise of secularism in Turkey. Meanwhile, veiling, an emblem of Islamization, has increased significantly within the last decade.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s public statements have also defied this optimistic view of Turkey as a “moderate” Islamic state. In 2007, he was quoted inMilliyet commenting on the term “moderate Islam” to describe his party, the AKP: “These descriptions are ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.” On democracy, Erdoğan has said, “Democracy is like a street car; you ride it as far as you need, and then you get off.” About the function of mosques, he said, “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers.”