ARTHUR HERMAN:HOW ISRAEL’S DEFENSE INDUSTRY CAN HELP AMERICA

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/
Kibbutz Sasa sits one mile from Israel’s Lebanese border. Founded in 1949, it is the site of the tomb of the second-century rabbi Levi ben Sisi. It hosts groves of fruit trees and a dairy farm and has 210 members. Kibbutz Sasa is also the home of the main factory of Plasan, a company that started out making hard plastic containers like garbage cans in 1985. For four years now, American soldiers have driven more safely in Iraq and Afghanistan, thanks to Kibbutz Sasa and Plasan’s CEO, Dani Ziv.

It was Ziv who, in the 1980s, urged the company to take up the manufacture of protective ballistic vests for soldiers and police. In 1989, Plasan won its first contract to make body armor for the Israel Defense Forces, and then for IDF vehicles. When war came to Afghanistan and then Iraq, orders went through the roof, especially from the United States. Plasan’s profits soared some 1,500 percent, from $23 million in 2003 to $330 million in 2007. Today they stand at over $500 million, with 90 percent of the company’s orders coming from Europe and the United States.

Plasan specializes in a very dense plastic composite product that affords ballistic protection without significantly adding to the weight of the vehicle. “Their work is exceptional,” says a senior Israeli defense industry executive about Plasan. “To convince the U.S. military that you are a reliable outfit is no mean feat. They did it all alone, without any help from a former ambassador or defense ministry director general.”

ISRAEL’S SIMPLE SHIMON PERES…..ADDICTED TO PEACE CHATTER THAT AMOUNTS TO NOTHING: HAGAI SEGAL

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4156222,00.html
Our president traveled to Jordan on Monday. If King Abdullah does not come to Jerusalem, Jerusalem comes to Abdullah. Secretly. Only thanks to the Jordanian news agency, which leaked word of the secret visit, we got to hear about it.

The truth is that it would not have been such a great disaster if we did not hear about it; it would not even amount to minor ignorance.

President Shimon Peres’ diplomatic meetings have no significance whatsoever, if we ignore for a moment the significance of the good feeling they bestow upon our president. Shimon Peres is addicted to secret meetings. They remind him of distant days where he cooked up sensational peace processes under the public’s nose. A meeting here, a quick concession there.

“The meeting was held at the king’s palace and bilateral issues were discussed,” the President’s Office said, toying with lofty worlds. The term “bilateralism” has an intoxicating diplomatic scent, as if real things are happening behind the curtain, yet in this case bilateralism can be summed up with “good morning your majesty” and “what would you like to drink.”

Nothing significant is happening in the Middle East at this time with the exception of the events in Cairo’s squares and on the streets of Syria.

GIULIO MEOTTI: THE ECONOMIST’S ISRAEL BASHING

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/150340
Oped: Giulio Meotti Takes on The Economist

In a hardhitting article, Italian journalist Giulio Meotti documents the influential magazine’s subtle and not-so-subtle Israel bashing.

The Economist Cover

In contrast to most newsmagazines, like the moribund Time and Newsweek, The Economist has a circulation of 1.2 million copies weekly around the world. Its correspondents have entrance to decision-makers of all levels in Washington and Europe.

This most prestigious British weekly, extremely influential in elite circles in the US as well, prides itself on being neither right nor left. It has, in fact, endorsed candidates in Britain and the United States from both sides of the political divide.

But on the Middle East, The Economist has a radical anti-Israel agenda. For years, Jewish groups and media critics have aimed their fire at Israel bashers on CNN, the BBC, in The New York Times and cultural media outlets such as the London Review of Books.

But The Economist is more subtle about it. Economist editorials and feature articles are published anonymously, giving the impression of being much more reputable and sophisticated.

A recent article titled “The Bedouin Under Israeli Rule” went beyond the usual slant, accusing the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing and promoting the imperialist-colonialist narrative. The CAMERA media watchdog denounced the fact that “The Economist presents the Israeli government’s resettlement of Bedouin into cities as part of a program driven purely by ethnic chauvinism”.

ANDREW McCARTHY: RAND PAUL VS. THE CONSTITUTION

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/284698/rand-paul-libertarian-extremist-andrew-c-mccarthy
Rand Paul, Libertarian Extremist
He made John McCain look foolish, but did not make compelling arguments.
The Tea Party’s limited-government, constitutional heart is in the right place. But it needs much better guidance about how the Constitution works in wartime.
The defense-authorization bill currently under congressional consideration contains some unremarkable, largely redundant provisions about the treatment of enemy combatants. Naturally, the now-familiar alliance of leftists and libertarian extremists — self-proclaimed “constitutionalists” all — attacked with their signature “sky is falling” equanimity. On Wednesday, my column addressed some of the more hysterical arguments posited by Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano. The real action, however, was taking place on the Senate floor, where Tea Party favorite Rand Paul (R., Ky.) squared off against John McCain (R., Ariz.), leader of the Republican party’s transnational-progressive wing. Sen. McCain, along with another tranzy, Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.), sponsored the detention provisions — which are thus collectively known as the McCain-Levin amendment.
Now, the fact that two progressives propose a bill does not necessarily make it wrong, but it can make their defense of it inscrutable. Video footage hyped by Reason magazine shows the folly of giving Senator McCain the laboring oar. He is a populist, out of his depth arguing constitutional issues. Perhaps more important, he is an enthusiastic believer in the alchemic power of “democracy” (or, at least, democratic processes such as elections and constitution-writing) to tame the most virulently anti-Western Islamic backwaters — no doubt owing to the fact that he seems less versed in Islamist ideology than he is in constitutional law.

MARTIN SHERMAN: SURRENDERING SOVEREIGNTY

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=247818
Into the Fray: Surrendering sovereignty
By adopting a policy to avoid confrontations in which it can prevail, Israel may eventually find itself forced into one in which it cannot.

Our hope – a hope 2,000 years old – will not be lost: To be a free people in our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem – From “Hatikva” (“The Hope”), Israel’s national anthem

Supreme power or authority; the authority of a state to govern itself; complete power to govern a country; the state of being a country with freedom to govern itself;

Definition of Sovereignty
– The Oxford Dictionary

Something is distinctly rotten in the State of Israel. The decision this week to delay – apparently indefinitely – the demolition and the replacement of the hazardous Mughrabi Bridge, linking the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, is a deeply disturbing sign. It is easy to downplay the significance of the decision; to present it as giving precedence to prudence over pride.

DAVID ISAAC: UP TO THEIR OLD TRICKS…ISRAEL’S LEFT

http://shmuelkatz.com/wordpress/ “Don’t despair, you will live to see a state in spite of these rascals,” said Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky to two young idealists, dejected after witnessing the behavior of the Leftwing Labor faction at the 17th Zionist congress in 1931.Jabotinsky was, of course, right. They did live to see a state. Unfortunately, what he […]

NANCY SALVATO: WHERE YOUR RIGHTS END AND MINE BEGIN

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.10948,css.print/pub_detail.asp As a child, I used to play with the neighbors across the street in one of the coolest sandboxes one could imagine. It was built into the landscape, with giant boulders lining the back and sides. Five kids could easily play in it, building sandcastles and manipulating bulldozers and dump trucks to their hearts […]

The Islamic Leadership Council and the OWS Movement: Patrick Dunleavy…see note

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.10947/pub_detail.asp

Patrick Dunleavy’s book on prisons and the imams that convert inmates is the most important and disturbing book I have read in years. Read it and be very afraid…..rsk
Zuccotti Park in New York City became the birthplace and later the headquarters of the nationwide Occupy Wall Street Movement in September of this year.
Camp kitchens were set up with gourmet meals to feed the hungry protesters as they waged war for the proletariat against the rich.
Distribution of sleeping bags and other essentials necessary for a prolonged stay in the park were free to all who came.
It was touted as the working man’s Utopia, fighting against the evil one percent who enslave us.
It didn’t take long for trouble to brew in Paradise. News reports of drug usage, crime, and sexual assault began to emerge in the following weeks. How did that happen?

HOT PICKS FROM FSM

December 2, 2011 * VIDEOS * TODAY’S HOT PICKS * Print This E-mail This ShareThis ♦♦♦ CHECK OUT FSM’S NEW HOT PICKS’ FEATURE: “WHAT DOES PAM THINK? “♦♦♦ 1. VIDEO: Banks Ban U. S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program Collection Boxes 2. VIDEO: Bono on George W. Bush AIDS activism: He ‘kind of […]

BRUCE BAWER: THE LOW COUNTRIES AT THEIR LOWEST

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/02/the-low-countries-at-their-lowest/ NRC Handelsblad is arguably the most respected newspaper in the Netherlands.  Hans Moll was an editor there for twenty years.  He is now retired, and has a few things to say about what he experienced there. In his new book, Verzwijgen als of het gedrunkt staat, of Hoe de nuance verdween: NRC Handelsblad over […]