http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=919 The New Mid-East school of thought underlines political correctness, but undermines the stability of the Real Mid-East. This has been recently verified by Western support of the “March of Democracy,” which has unleashed rampant violence on the Arab Street. In defiance of an unpredictably raging Mid-East, the New Mid-Easterners call for a quick transition […]
http://www.juliagorin.com/wordpress/?p=2755
Jewish cemetery in Kosovo capital desecrated: ‘Jews out’ spray-painted on memorial for Jewish families who perished during World War II. (AP, via Israel News, Dec. 1)
Police in Kosovo are investigating who sprayed swastikas on dozens of tombstones in a Jewish cemetery recently restored by American and Kosovan students, a spokesman said Thursday.
Brahim Sadrija said police had sealed off the cemetery in the capital, Kosovo, and are looking for clues. The vandalism is believed to have happened Tuesday.
…
In June, a group of students from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and their peers from the American University in Kosovo restored the neglected cemetery by clearing debris from around the graves and cutting overgrown grass.
Rabbi Edward S. Boraz of the college’s Roth Center for Jewish Life held a dedication ceremony at the memorial site, with students taking turns to read out the names of Jewish families from the region who perished during World War II.
I remember those poor suckers, and have been meaning to write about that visit. Note that when it comes to Americans and the Balkans, even the Ivy League gets only a remedial-level education, as my follow-up blog will illustrate. In advance of the PR trip, a boob named Jason Steinbaum was dispatched from NY Rep. Eliot Engel’s office to tell the wiz kids all they’d need to know about Kosovo, a briefing that was more or less three general-issue paragraphs.
Jason Steinbaum, “expert”; senior foreign affairs committee staffer for Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.
According to the article about the cemetery desecration, it seems the Albanians haven’t forgotten their German. Well, almost:
On Thursday the hate graffiti “Jud Raus” – a misspelling of the German “Juden Raus,” which means “Jews out” – could still be seen at the foot of a memorial.
President Atifete Jahjaga and Prime Minister Hashim Thaci condemned the act.
“The damaging of cemeteries presents an act in complete contradiction with the traditions and values of the people of Kosovo, based on tolerance and full respect for all the dead and all the monuments,” Jahjaga said in a statement.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.10957/pub_detail.asp
Boko Haram is a controversial Islamist group that seeks the imposition of Shariah law in the northern states of Nigeria. The group’s official name is Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, which in Arabic means “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad.”
Yesterday, U.S. Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA) and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), Chairman and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, released a bipartisan report entitled “Boko Haram – Emerging Threat to the U.S. Homeland,” (pdf) detailing the rapid evolution of the Nigerian-based terrorist organization Boko Haram.
In August 2011, Boko Haram attacked the United Nations headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria with a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (IED), killing 23 people and wounding more than 80 others.
In a video recorded before the attack, the suicide bomber described the U.N. as a forum for “all global evil” and stated that the attack was designed to “send a message to the U.S. President and ‘other infidels.’”
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.10965/pub_detail.asp
Even if you have read other histories of World War II you will want to read this book by the man The Economist calls Britain’s finest military historian. And if you haven’t, there is no better way to start than with this scholarly yet immensely readable history of the last great war.
Here are only a few of its virtues:
1. Maps. Roberts provides a large number of maps and sketches of the most important battles and campaigns, in order of time, in Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific, at the beginning of the book. This makes it easy for the reader to follow the action without the typical frustrating searches in the book’s interior when maps are interspersed with text–and there are not enough of them.
2. Eye for telling detail. A book of this scope has to husband its quotes and anecdotes very carefully so as to illuminate what is important without bogging the reader down. Roberts is at his best here. For example, that Patton was a colorful general with a high opinion of his own talents is well known. Roberts conveys this with a quote from Patton’s diary during the war: “When I think of the greatness of my job and realize that I am what I am, I am amazed, but on reflection, who is as good as I am? I know of no one.” And Roberts skillfully conveys the mindless horror of the war. He quotes, on the German side, a Lieutenant Schutte whose company commander saw the face of what he thought was an enemy sniper, and fired a full clip of his pistol into what turned out to be “a bodiless head, which had been blown off by an artillery blast and tossed up into the tree, where it had lodged.”
3. Wit and humor. Roberts has a dry wit that enlivens a book which inevitably has more horror than humor. Of Charles de Gaulle, he writes that examples of his ingratitude towards his British wartime hosts are legion. “De Gaulle’s staple diet between 1940 and 1944 was the hand that fed him.” And on the “special relationship” between England and America: “The British and American generals in the west between 1943 to 1945 did indeed have a special relationship: it was especially dreadful.” And he reports on the moments of unintended humor from Hitler himself. At one of the military conferences during the war (Hitler had them meticulously documented for posterity by six–eventually eight–parliamentary stenographers) Hitler declared: “One always counts on the decency of others. We are so decent.”
4. The human side. Roberts gives us an insight into the foibles of the war’s great (and not so great) generals, including their vanity and efforts to outdo the others, in public relations if not on the battlefield. General Mark Clark emerges as the biggest self-promoter of the lot. Roberts quotes from one book on the war that noted Clark had fifty men working on public relations, which included a “three to one” rule. “Every press release was to mention Clark three times on the front page and at least once on all other pages–and the General also demanded that photographs be only taken of him from his left side. His public relations team even came up with a Fifth Army song: ‘Stand up, stand up for General Clark, let’s sing the praises of General Clark…He was very fond of that song.'” On the other hand, Roberts lets us see a softer side of General Patton, revealed after the war by General John Hull, who worked with Patton closely on three campaigns. “At heart he was very gentle, he was modest, very friendly, not at all superior in his attitude toward you…when he left a formation where he bawled somebody out, he might sit down and write a prayer…So, all in all he was quite a character, interesting and very likeable if you knew him.”
5. Asks interesting questions. Roberts asks questions that were not raised during the war or in its immediate aftermath but have become a focus of concern decades later. Should the Allies have bombed the railroad lines to Auschwitz? Was the Pope culpable in not speaking out against the Holocaust while it was in progress? Could the battle of El Alamein, with its heavy casualties for the Allies, have been avoided? Was it justifiable–or indeed of strategic value–to bomb the civilian population in occupied Europe, Germany and Japan? And, of course, what has become the most asked question, Should the U.S. have dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Roberts also raises the question, throughout the book, Could a different decision by Hitler, at various pivotal moments, have produced a Nazi victory?
Roberts delivers thoughtful and sometimes surprising answers to these and many other questions he raises in this chronicle of what fellow historian Max Hastings calls “the largest event in human history.” To learn what his answers are, read the book.
It is a privilege to meet and interview the author.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.10966/pub_detail.asp The new Obama initiative urges colleges and universities to increase diversity on campus by pretending that affirmative action is not about race, which courts have found to be unconstitutional, but about something else that mysteriously will provide a better racial mix. Colleges could decide to give admission preferences to graduates of certain schools (which would be […]
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2011/12/you_cant_be_pro-obama_and_pro-israel.html
Neil Snyder is a chaired professor emeritus at the University of Virginia. His blog, SnyderTalk.com, is posted daily.His latest book is titled If You Voted for Obama in 2008 to Prove You’re Not a Racist, You Need to Vote for Someone Else in 2012 to Prove You’re Not an Idiot.
Since the day he took office, President Obama has been anti-Israel.
Barack Obama has failed to achieve the bipartisan results that he promised to seek while running for office. In fact, he has created a chasm between the political left and right in this country that is wider than it has ever been.
The president’s tendency to shove his agenda down people’s throats regardless of the merits, the biting partisan rhetoric that he aims at political opponents, the condescending way that he talks down to legislators with more experience and better ideas, the “this is not about me” mantra that he uses repeatedly to insult anyone who dares to challenge his ideas, and his incessant posturing are huge parts of the president’s problem. President Obama has even managed to alienate the far left in his own party. Some say that’s because he’s too centrist, but anyone who calls Barack Obama a centrist has to ignore his long and sordid history of leftist positions on a broad range of issues and his radical far left friends and advisors.
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2011/12/rick_perry_and_sharia_and_robert_spencer.html
Robert Spencer posted an attack against me on this site regarding a series of articles I wrote last summer debunking the meme that Governor Rick Perry foisted “pro-Sharia” classroom materials on children in Texas schools. Although I hadn’t planned to revisit the Perry/Sharia debate, the sheer nastiness of Spencer’s attack has, in the words of Michael Corleone, “pulled me back in.”
As I’m a guest here on AT, I can’t be as verbose as I am on my own site. What I’ll do, though, is provide a brief overview of this manufactured controversy.
In 2008, Perry inked a deal with the Aga Khan Foundation to create the Muslim Histories and Culture Project (MHCP), the goal of which was to help Texas teachers create classroom lesson plans about Islam. It was a voluntary program in which teachers would attend a series of MHCP seminars, the end result of which would be the creation of lesson plans. The Aga Khan Foundation represents Ismaili Muslims, who follow a moderate, peaceful interpretation of Islam (a fact confirmed by experts on Islamic extremism from Daniel Pipes to Spencer himself).
In August, Salon’s Justin Elliott ran a piece which claimed, with no factual backing, that the Perry/Khan deal suggests that Perry is the “pro-Sharia candidate.” Elliott had previously accused Perry of being a “pro-porn candidate.” These articles were nothing more than provocations — attempts by a liberal to create friction among conservatives. And immediately, Pamela Geller took the bait. Within days, she was breathlessly proclaiming that Perry was introducing pro-Sharia materials into Texas schools. Geller offered no evidence beyond the Salon piece.
The 94-Year-Old Frenchman Behind ‘Occupy’ Posted By Michel Gurfinkiel
URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-94-year-old-frenchman-behind-%e2%80%98occupy%e2%80%99/
A little more than 13 months ago, a left-wing French publishing house specializing in Third World advocacy published a very short (32 pages) and very cheap (three euros) political brochure titled Indignez-vous! [1] (Time for Outrage!).
The author was nonagenarian Stephane Frederic Hessel: a Nazi camp survivor, a former ambassador, and a regular French talk show guest. The booklet was an instant bestseller: one million copies in the first ten weeks, 1.5 million in the first year.
It still remains, as of today, the number one book on French bestseller lists.
The reasons for such a stunning success were quite obvious. Those people who read a bit, but not much, were thrilled to buy what passed for a serious essay by an important person for less than the price of a magazine. They were even happier to find out that Hessel’s philosophy was a perfect fit for their own intellectual and ethical size.
The Great Old Man urged contemporary youth to get “outraged” about poverty and injustice and to fight for a better world, just as he had done seventy years earlier as a member of the anti-Nazi Resistance. Who on Earth would contend with that, especially when the enemy was not the Third Reich, but benign modern democracies?
Moreover, the villain Hessel repeatedly mentioned and attacked was Israel — the country most people in France love to hate already.
It takes a Jew (US Diplomat)…to blame Jew Hatred on Jewish State
WWW.ZSTREET.ORG
HAS ANYONE READ ANDREW BOSTOM’S “THE LEGACY OF ISLAMIC ANTI-SEMITISM” WHICH PAINSTAKINGLY DETAILS IN CHAPTER AFTER CHAPTER THE LONG HISTORY OF MUSLIM ANTI-SEMITISM FROM THE TIME OF THE PROPHET MOHAMMAD? …..HOWARD GUTMAN IS AN IGNORAMUS…..RSK
How many non-Jews would dare to raise the outrageous charge that it is the fault of the Jewish State, Israel, that Muslims hate Jews? And yet, perhaps if uttered by a Jew the hope is that it might gain some traction.
When the US Ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, (a Jewish name, a Jewish face…) said at a conference in Brussels this week that “Muslim anti-Semitism ‘stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians,” we have to wonder whether that was an official statement of this US administration.
Because if it were not, this administration must fire Mr. Gutman for his calumny of the Jewish State. And if Gutman is merely representing the position of his employer, this US administration, then we must ask every voter in America whether that represents their views. Already the Emergency Committee for Israel has, in no uncertain terms, condemned Gutman’s remarks and called for his dismissal, as has the Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Z STREET is adding its voice to the call. As any casual student of the Middle East surely knows, Muslim hatred of Jews far precedes the rebirth of the Jewish State in 1948, and in fact dates all the way back to the time of Mohammed, the father of Islam. How Gutman could be so undiplomatic is hard to fathom. Whether this Administration allows Gutman to continue playing diplomat is worth asking. If you don’t think it should, as we don’t, contact President Barack Obama and let him know.
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/
“People like that do exist, though they can be hard to find. Florida found a former lieutenant colonel who in the normal state of affairs would probably never have run for office. Once upon a time California found a former movie star. There are people like that all around us outside the political class. They have talents, they can speak and they have firm beliefs that they can communicate. But many of them have never thought of running for office. If the Tea Party or any conservative grass roots movement is to be effective, it will need to find those people and support them. That’s not an easy task, the last two years remind us that not everyone who speaks well or says the right things or is a political outsider is also going to be a good candidate… but that is also part of the process.”
What the 2010 elections and the 2012 primaries both tell us sharply is that having a vibrant grass-roots is not the same as having political leaders. Often when the base is boiling, that’s when the party is unable to bring anyone to the table except the halfwits and leaders so uninspiring that no amount of hair pulling cognition can make you understand how they made it to the endgame.
