THE LEGACY OF PASSOVER : AMERICA AND ISRAEL: YORAM ETTINGER ****

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1657

Passover, and especially the legacy of Moses and the Exodus, has been part of the American story since the seventeenth century, inspiring the American pursuit of liberty, justice and morality.

The special role played by Passover – and the Bible – in shaping the American state of mind constitutes the foundation of the unique relations between the American People and the Jewish State. As important as are the current mutual threats and interests between the US and Israel, the bedrock of the unbreakable US-Israel alliance are permanent values, principles and legacies, such as Passover.

In 1620 and 1630, William Bradford and John Winthrop delivered sermons on the “Mayflower” and “Arbella,” referring to the deliverance from “modern day Egypt and Pharaoh,” to “the crossing of the modern day Red Sea” and to New Zion/Canaan as the destination of the Pilgrims on board.

In 1776, Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense (which cemented public support for the revolution), referred to King George as the “hardened, sullen tempered Pharaoh.” Upon declaration of independence, Benjamin Franklin, the most secular Founding Father, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second third American Presidents, proposed a Passover theme for the official US seal: the Pillar of Fire leading Moses and the Israelites through the Red Sea, while Pharaoh’s chariots drown in the Sea. The inscription on the seal was supposed to be: “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God,” framing the rebellion against the British monarchy as principle-driven. The lessons of the Jewish deliverance from Egyptian bondage reverberated thunderously among the Rebels, who considered the thirteen colonies to be “the modern day Twelve Tribes.”

The 19th century Abolitionists, and the Civil Rights movement from the 1940s to the 1970s, were inspired by the ethos of the Exodus and by the Bible’s opposition to slavery. In the 1830s, the Liberty Bell, an icon of American independence, was adopted by the Abolitionists, due to its Exodus-inspired inscription: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof” (Leviticus 25:10). Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), and her husband, Calvin Ellis Stowe (“The Little Rabbi”) were scholars of the Bible and the Exodus. Harriet Tubman, who escaped slavery in 1849 and freed Black slaves on the Underground Railroad, earned the name “Moses.” The 1879/80 Black slaves who ran away to Kansas were called “the Exodusters.” The most famous spiritual, “Go Down, Moses” was considered the National Anthem of Black slaves.

In 1865, following the murder of President Lincoln, most eulogies compared him to Moses. Just like Moses, Lincoln liberated slaves, but was stopped short of the Promised Land.France paid tribute to the martyred Lincoln by erecting the Statue of Liberty, featuring rays of sun and a tablet, just like the glaring Moses descending from Mount Sinai with the Two Tablets of the Ten Commandments.

In 1954, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. compared the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision to desegregate public schools to the parting of the Red Sea. In 1964, upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. King proclaimed: “Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself. The Bible tells the thrilling story of how Moses stood in Pharaoh’s court centuries ago and cried, ‘Let my people go.’”

President Reagan mentioned (Reagan at Westminster, 2010) Exodus as the first incident in a long line of Western resistance to tyranny: “Since the exodus from Egypt, historians have written of those who sacrificed and struggled for freedom – the stand at Thermopylae, the revolt of Spartacus, the storming of the Bastille, the Warsaw uprising in World War II.”

In July, 2003, President Bush stated, in Senegal, that “in America, enslaved Africans learned the story of the exodus from Egypt, and set their own hearts on a promised land of freedom.”

In March, 2007, Senator Obama said in Selma, Alabama that the civil rights pioneers were the “Moses generation” and he was part of the “Joshua generation” that would “find our way across the river.”

In 2012, the statue of Moses stares at the Speaker of the House, another statue of Moses towers above the seats of the Supreme Court Justices, a Ten Commandment monument sits on the ground of the Texas State Capitol and a similar monument will be shortly erected on the ground of the Oklahoma State Capitol.

In 2012, the leader of the Free World and its sole soul ally in the Mid-East, Israel, are facing the most lethal threat to liberty since 1945 – conventional and non-conventional Islamic terrorism. Adherence to the legacy of Passover, marshaling the conviction-driven leadership of Moses, and demonstrating the Joshua and Caleb courage and defiance of odds, will once again facilitate the victory of liberty over tyranny.

YORAM ETTINGER: A PASSOVER GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED

http://www.theettingerreport.com/Jewish-Holidays/Passover-Guide-for-the-Perplexed-2012.aspx 1. David Ben Gurion, the Founding Father of the Jewish State (UN Commission, 1947): “300 years ago, the Mayflower launched its historical voyage. Do many remember the exact data of the voyage, how many passengers were on the Mayflower and what kind of bread did they consume? However, 3,300 years earlier, the Exodus from […]

DANIEL GREENFIELD: UTOPIA’S FREE LUNCH

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ Lunch is a nice meal and a free lunch is even nicer. The problem with free lunches is that someone always has to pay for them. Lunches don’t grow on trees, unless they’re fresh fruit, the ingredients have to be gathered, processed, shipped, mixed, prepared, packaged, shipped again and put on your plate by […]

SHOSHANA BRYEN:U.S. Complicit with Palestinian Authority Budgeting Mischief

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/blog/u-s-complicit-with-palestinian-authority-budgeting-mischief/ The Palestinian Authority is crying poverty [1] again, complaining about a decrease in expected levels of foreign aid that will force Palestinians into penury or — heaven forbid — tax increases. The Palestinian public is in no mood for that, according to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. In […]

SHOSHANA BRYEN: WAHT’S ON THAT SHIP AND WHERE IS IT GOING?

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/04/whats_on_that_ship_and_where_is_it_going.html

Why did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton waive requirements that would have stopped arms shipment to the Muslim Brotherhood-controlled government of Egypt?

Once more, it is a tough choice between standing with Amnesty International or with the Obama administration. Once more, Amnesty International wins. Ouch.

U.S. arms transfers to third parties are regulated by the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), which provides export licenses only in cases that “will strengthen U.S. national security, promote foreign policy goals, or foster world peace. The Arms Export Control Act is administered by the Department of State.”

Egypt is a major recipient of U.S. military aid and equipment, and to this point the Secretary of State has always certified that arms to Egypt meet the test. In addition, the administration is required to aver that Egypt is meeting its obligations under the peace treaty with Israel, and to this point, it has done so. However, since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian government has been extremely heavy-handed in its management of internal security — with American weapons in its arsenal — and overtly anti-Israel.

Enter Amnesty International.

THE WRITING ON THE WALL IN TOULOUSE: MERAH IS A “CHEVALIER DE L’ISLAM”

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/

To those Western apologists who have tried to make out that there was no link between Mohamed Merah’s murderous actions and his Islam since some of his victims, the soldiers of North African extraction, were Muslims themselves, there is, of course, the very pertinent response that those fellow-Muslims, wearing the uniform of France, were fighting for the infidel. Not only that: Merah’s own blog shows that he was as an antisemtic jihadist. Here is a thoughtful take on the situation.

Now, despite the misgivings of municipal officials, the mass murderer’s body lies in the soil of the city in which he committed his slaughter of Jews, rather than in Algeria as initially intended (see, for instance, this report).

In Toulouse, the following graffiti, daubed on a wall (see photograph and further commentary here), eloquently testifies to Merah’s stature among certain sections of the population:

Tu as été un preux Chevalier de l’islam,
tu as combattu la merde sioniste et les faux musulmans
tu es mort les armes à la main…
je te salue Mohamed mon frère, mon ami…
Repose en paix !

Here’s a rough translation:

You have been a valiant knight of Islam
You have fought the Zionist shit and the fake Muslim
you have died weapons in hand
I salute you Mohamed, my brother, my friend,
rest in peace.

MARK STEYN:Just reading Obamacare cruel and unusual punishment

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/government-347024-law-court.html It’s not just that the legislators who legislate it don’t know what’s in it, nor that citizens can ever hope to understand it, but that even the nation’s most eminent judges acknowledge that it is beyond individual human comprehension. Since the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor, Swingin’ Anthony Kennedy has been the swingingest swinger […]

ANDREW McCARTHY: STATISM GOES TO COURT

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/294831/statism-goes-court-andrew-c-mccarthy

‘Well, I can’t imagine that that — that the Commerce Clause would — would forbid Congress from taking into account this deeply embedded social norm.”

This was Solicitor General Donald Verrilli on Day Two of the great Obamacare case. At issue was Affordable Care Act’s most controversial aspect: the “individual mandate” — the requirement that Americans purchase health insurance as a condition of living in their country. The SG was being pummeled by Justice Antonin Scalia.

Pummeling was the order of the day for Verrilli. From the moment he rose to deliver the most important argument of his professional life, he seemed tongue-tied; he could barely get through “May it please the Court” without sputtering. It is hard, even for a lawyer as fine as Verrilli, to defend the indefensible. Yet, as he argued with Scalia, the SG grabbed on to a hidden truth: He and his fellow progressives are already way, way ahead. They may not win this skirmish over the individual mandate. But there is the battle, and then there is the war. For statism, the war is still going very well.

The “deeply embedded social norm” to which the SG referred was another government mandate: The 1986 law demanding that hospitals, without compensation, treat emergency patients who lack insurance or the capacity to pay. It was a telling moment: The hullaballoo over the individual mandate is a case of noticing the barn door open about a quarter-century after the horse has galloped away.

DANE VALLEJO: THE LOONY LEFT UPDATE….GALLOWAY, THE ONLY MAN ABLE TO MAKE KEN LIVINGSTON LOOK LIKE A CENTRIST IS BACK IN PARLIAMENT

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1048/loony_left_heeeere_s_georgie_edition

1. GEORGE GALLOWAY BACK IN PARLIAMENT

Mother of God – he’s back.

The man who once said, “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability”, to none other than Saddam Hussain; who was once accused of having taken money from the former Iraqi regime (though I must stress for libel reasons, there was insufficient evidence to substantiate the claims); who is pally with former Iraqi Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz; who claims that Hezbollah has never been a terrorist organisation; who is the proud owner of a Palestinian passport, given to him by Hamas’s Ismail Haniya; who once allegedly claimed that “democracy in Cuba is more ‘free’ than in the UK”; who shamelessly showers Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with charm.

The only man who is able to make Ken Livingstone look like something resembling a centrist. He is back – in Parliament.

HOURIYA AHMED: GEORGE GALLOWAY’S WIN IS A LOSS

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1050/george_galloway_s_win_is_mainstream_politics_loss There are fewer things in life that are more depressing than seeing George Galloway’s smug face after winning an election. Yet this is the reality after Galloway managed to convince 55.9 percent of those who voted in Bradford West to vote for him, despite his past stint as the Respect MP in Bethnal Green […]