RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Politics of Projection in the West Posted By Dennis Mitzner

To many on the political left, Europe’s new right-wing parties seem to represent the perils of Europe’s dark history. The rise of new right parties in Europe during the past decade led to widespread panic among many Western observers.

When European right-wing parties gain in polls and win elections, newspapers overflow with articles declaring the end of democracy. Following the Swedish parliamentary elections in September 2010, Newsweek‘s Denis MacShane wrote [1] :

Thus the arrival of a new politics in Europe. A decade ago extremist politics was confined to fringes and street protests. It has now arrived as a parliamentary force and is beginning to change how other parties behave and speak.

According to [2] Daniel Sandström, the editor of the large Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan, Jimmy Åkesson, the leader of Swedish Democrats, “is a clever populist, careful not to cross the line and say anything that seems undemocratic. But his party has a tremendous acceptance of racism.”

New York Times columnist, Roger Cohen claimed [2] that “hatred of Muslims in Europe and the United States is a growing political industry. It’s odious, dangerous and racist.”

Holder to testify on Fast and Furious before Issa’s committee [FOX] Jihadist Group Declares War on France for Being ‘Hostile to Islam’ [THE BLAZE] Review urges delay in borrowing billions for bullet train [LAT] Grover Norquist, Mullah’s Ally From an ex-CIA spy: U.S. must exploit new split in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard [CSM] President defies Congress […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11165/pub_detail.asp Egyptian archeological records from the 9th century BC show that King Saul established a Jewish Monarchy in the land of Israel. Famine ravaged the Kingdom causing Jacob, his twelve sons, and their families, to settle in Egypt. They became the twelve tribes of Jacob. Descendants became slaves, until Moses led the Jews out of Egypt. The […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11159/pub_detail.asp

THE MSM AND THE LIBERACI ROUNDLY CONDEMNED ISRAEL AND LIBELED GENERAL ARIEL SHARON. HE WENT TO COURT AND WON HIS CASE AGAINST TIME MAGAZINE….THE LEBANON WAS AND THAT EVENT AND THE ENSUING CANARDS MARKED A SHARP TURNING POINT IN THE MEDIA’S TREATMENT OF ISRAEL….RSK

This past September marked the twenty-ninth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanon’s president-elect Bashir Gemayel. Like its most recent clone, the 2005 murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, memories of the 1982 crime continue to haunt many Lebanese, some of whom are still persuaded its perpetrators to have been Syrian operatives bent on scuttling end-of-conflict prospects for Lebanon. Today, as Syria’s “Alawite era” teeters on the edge of its twilight, and as the international community prepares to indict it for ongoing crimes against its own people, the regime’s shady gruesome past is coming back to assail its tattered present days.

Although few Westerners today might remember Bashir Gemayel (or his assassination), and fewer still might be tempted to consider the motivations of those who commissioned his murder, rare are those who would not readily recall the massacres at Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps, and rarer still are those who would not attribute those crimes to “right-wing” Lebanese-Christian militiamen—ostensibly bent on avenging their fallen leader. Never mind that Gemayel’s elimination and the ensuing massacres of Palestinian civilians hardly served the cause of Lebanon’s Christians. Indeed, the events in question plunged Lebanon into another eight years of bloodshed, tightened Syria’s grip over the country, turned it into a Syrian “satellite state” wholly bound to the whims and will of Damascus, and reduced the status of Lebanon’s Christians to a state of subservience and political insignificance. Yet, the narrative that attributes Gemayel’s killing to Israeli agents, and the Sabra and Shatila massacres to Israel’s Lebanese Christian allies—getting Syria off scot free—still has its defenders, and still defines a significant chapter in Lebanon’s modern history.

Today, as Syria veers toward civil war, as its military occupation of Lebanon seems to be a thing of the past, and as the international “Special Tribunal for Lebanon” readies to finger Syrian officials (beginning with the recent indictment of their Hezbollah foot-soldiers) for a string of political assassinations that have shook Lebanon since 2005, a revision of the pleasing narrative of an Israeli and (a “right-wing”)Lebanese Christian involvement in Sabra and Shatila seems fitting.

Besides the Kahan Commission’s mention of armed elements dressed in Lebanese Forces uniforms entering Sabra and Shatila between September 16 and the morning of September 18, 1982, there is no hard usable evidence to support the scenario of murderous Lebanese Christians itching to mete out revenge on Palestinian refugees for the assassination of President-elect Bashir Gemayel; that is to say there is no concrete usable evidence besides eyewitness reports of “men dressed in LF uniforms”—knowing full well that “uniforms” of every stripe were a dime a dozen in civil-war-era Lebanon.

Of course a scenario such as this remains tempting, and in the context of Lebanon’s war—and its cycles of tit-for-tat massacres and counter massacres—it would have made plenty of sense for Christian militias to exact revenge on Palestinians for the killing of their leader. However, there is no evidence to bear this out beyond the circumstantial. Of course, an argument could be made—and indeed one was made—that rogue elements of the Lebanese Forces, without knowledge or express directives from the LF’s leadership, entered the camps with the intent of killing Palestinian civilians. The question that begs being asked in this case would be, “why would LF members commit these crimes, flaunting easily identifiable insignia and uniforms, incriminating themselves and their community, at a time when Lebanon’s Christians had been hard at work for reconciliation with other constitutive elements of Lebanese society?”

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11161/pub_detail.asp

The nation’s largest, most sophisticated law enforcement agency, the New York City Police Department, announced its acquisition of new, high-tech equipment to help police officers keep the city safe from terrorists: the NYPD’s Harbor Unit now possesses six unmanned underwater drones to help bomb technicians and emergency services unit officers to detect suspected underwater explosives.

The NYPD now possesses six underwater drones, with each costing between $75,000 and $120,000 depending on the drones’ capabilities.

These drones help to sweep the city’s waterways and bridges searching for possible bombs and IEDs (improvised explosive devices). In a recent drone demonstration, NYPD officers easily tossed the lightweight — sixteen pound – submersible equipped with lights and sonar into the harbour and sailed it beneath the hull of a large commercial tanker docked close to the Kings County (Brooklyn) Army Terminal.

The police officers showed that they were able to guide the drone via remote control in order to utilize its underwater camera to search below the ship. The drone operators, all of whom are veteran detectives, have been trained to identify what biological or radiological weapons look like and where underwater explosives or narcotics are most likely to be hidden.

Under Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and later his replacement Ray Kelly, the Harbor Unit is used more in performing counterterrorism operations than the unit is used to conduct rescue and recovery operations.

On most days the unit receives several security alerts from the police department’s Intelligence Division each day. This situation demands that the unit inspects suspicious boats below bridges, sweep an incoming cargo ship’s hull, or respond to a report of a “suspicious floating package.”

http://times247.com/ U.S. defense strategy: A smaller, sweeter Army Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta ha… Read more… Obama sidesteps Congress again, appointing 3 to NLRB Hours after making a controversial r… Read more… Odds-on favorite hopes to pull away in N.H. Mitt Romney eagerly pocketed an endo… Read more… Judge rules Muslim attack on Jewish girl […]

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/01/04/all-american-muslims-very-special-tribute-to-911/ Empathy is the essence of tragedy. To be able to mourn for others we have to feel their loss and make it our own. Most Americans never lost anyone on September 11. Most never knew anyone who died that day in the planes above or the buildings below. And yet we […]

http://news.yahoo.com/former-israel-pm-indicted-graft-property-scandal-084515731.html

THIS IS ABOUT GREED AND MONEY BUT HE IS MORALLY INDICTED FOR HIS SO CALLED “PEACE PLAN” WHEN HE WAS THE ACCIDENTAL PRIME MINISTER AFTER THE STILL SOMNOLENT ARIEL SHARON SUCCUMBED TO A STROKE. RSK

Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert was on Thursday indicted alongside a number of other people for allegedly taking bribes in a massive property scandal, judicial sources said.

The allegations stem from Olmert’s tenure as Jerusalem mayor and will add to the woes of the former premier, who is already on trial on three unrelated counts of fraud and bribery.

Olmert is accused of allegedly accepting bribes to smooth the way for the construction of the huge Holyland residential complex in Jerusalem during his tenure as mayor in the 1990s.

“An indictment has been served on Olmert and others,” a spokeswoman for the courts administration told AFP.

The indictment named Olmert, his former aide Shula Zaken and his successor as mayor, Uri Lupolianski, along with several senior city hall officials, prominent businessmen and property developers.

Last March, the justice ministry said Israeli prosecutors were poised to file charges against 18 people, including Olmert, for allegedly taking bribes during the time when he was mayor of Jerusalem.

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Decline-or-acquiesence–7248

An introduction to our symposium “Is America in Decline?,” held jointly with England’s Social Affairs Unit.

Burke was right!
We are only five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.

—Barack Obama, October 2008

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
—Barack Obama, April 2009

Civilizations die from suicide, not murder.
—Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History

Decline is once again in vogue.1 When we began contemplating a symposium on the question “Is America in Decline” last spring, little did we think that our finger would be so firmly on the pulse of the Zeitgeist. Look around: kindred symposia, essays, and special sections have sprouted up like mushrooms. Some have employed the same title we chose—“Is America in Decline?”—but I’ve noticed a gradual ratcheting up of the rhetorical volume. The current issue of Foreign Affairs, for example, screams in seventy-two-point type: “Is America Over?”

English is not as formal as Latin in distinguishing between questions that are genuine questions and those that expect a certain answer, Yes or No as the case may be. This gives writers and editors a little epistemological wiggle room. “Is America in Decline?” “Is America Over?” Are those genuine questions or covert declarations? You have to read on to find out. Let me say straightaway, then, that we intend our question mark to be a neutral interrogative. There are plenty of sobering observations and depressing statistics in the essays that follow. But the (generally gleeful) certitude that the answer to such questions must be Yes is hasty if not misplaced. The rejoinders “That depends” and “Compared to what?” never seem to receive the attention they deserve.

http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/louis-rene-beres/israels-survival/2012/01/04/

Credo quia absurdum. “I believe because it is absurd.” It is a mantra I have used often here in The Jewish Press in reference to Israel’s persistent security dilemma.At this latest time of testing for Israel, this mantra – an ancient Latin adage – may once again become the Jewish state’s most “reasonable” exclamation.

Ironic, perhaps, but why not? When, after all, have Israel’s critical victories ever been explicable in ordinary military or political terms? When have we ever been asked to believe, convincingly, that an utterly beleaguered country, half the size of Lake Michigan, would somehow be able to survive by combining advanced technologies, coherent military planning, and manifestly clever strategic operations?

At its core, Israel’s “being” is really about the incontestable meanings of “aliveness.” We Jews, both in our prayers, and in our sacred rituals, have always understood the difference between life and death, between the “blessing” and the “curse.” Now, in essence, all Jewish survival, individually and collectively, recognizably or obscured, is inextricably bound up with survival of the Jewish state. Reciprocally, the macro concern of Israel’s physical survival is now always a question about the individual Jew writ large.