RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Islamist attacks in Copenhagen on Saturday were all but expected. The Danish police report claiming the 22 years old Danish born Muslim, Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, was “a Lone Wolf.”

He may have been the only shooter, but he was not alone. And he was not a wolf, nor was he “self radicalized.” He was a sheep inspired by repeated Islamist propaganda and incitement for jihad, targeting those who “offend” their prophet Mohammad, and the Jews.

“Cursing or mocking the Prophet is an act of apostasy, as all scholars concur, whether it is done seriously or in jest. Anyone who does this, Muslim or infidel, must be killed,
even if he repents” [Emphasis added],” instructed Saudi Imam Issa Assiri in his televised sermon that was posted on his Facebook page (translated by MEMRI) in the aftermath of the Paris attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the Jewish supermarket.

Concern over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, and the danger it poses to the survival of the nation should be common to all shades of political opinion in Israel.

Iran has exploited… turmoil to pursue positions of power within other countries beyond the control of national authorities, such as in Lebanon and Iraq, and while developing a nuclear program of potentially global consequence… Nuclear talks with Iran began as an international effort, buttressed by six UN resolutions, to deny Iran the capability to develop a military nuclear option. They are now an essentially bilateral negotiation over the scope of that capability… The impact of this approach will be to move from preventing proliferation to managing it
– Henry Kissinger, before the US Senate Committee on Armed Services, January 29, 2015

Israel has no foreign policy, only domestic policy
– Henry Kissinger

These citations from the doyen of American strategic diplomacy – one from a statement delivered last month, the other, a remark made decades ago – capture the essence of the brouhaha that has erupted over the invitation extended to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by Speaker of the US House of Representatives John Boehner to address a joint session of Congress on March 3.

The first illustrates the substantive disagreement over the emerging accord with Tehran and its nuclear program; the other exposes the underlying reason for the political disagreement in Israel over the invitation – and which, in turn, has sparked parallel political disagreement in the US.

Not a Netanyahu apologist

Regular readers of this column will know that I am not an uncritical Netanyahu apologist. I have on numerous occasions condemned his policy decisions when I have thought them flawed and/or unfounded. On the other hand, I have defended him vigorously against ad hominem attacks by political opponents or by the pathologically antagonistic mainstream media.

However, on the issue of his acceptance of Boehner’s invitation to present Israel’s perception of the Iranian nuclear issue to the representatives of the American people, there should be no room for equivocation.

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

We’re well into the new century, moving swiftly through the second decade of the new millennium, at ease in an era of science, modern medicine and wondrous electronics that our grandparents could not have imagined. (Even our parents don’t understand most of it.)

So why does 2015 smell like Munich in 1938, reeking of denial, blindness, cant and cowardice in the year that would introduce monstrous tyranny and barbarism, an assault on the very idea of civilization? Comparisons may be odious but only the weak and foolish look and do not see.

A gunman invades the sanctity of a synagogue in Copenhagen, where Jews at worship imagined they were safe, and kills the man guarding the door. This followed by a day an attempted massacre at a seminar on free speech in another part of Copenhagen, where a gunman shouting the familiar Muslim cry of worship — “Allahhu Akbar,” or “God is great” — shot and killed one of the participants.

‘Devastated’ by Slain Jew, yet Denmark Huge Funder of Anti-Israel Activity NGO-Monitor: “Danish government is among the leaders in funding for anti-Israel NGO demonization in Europe, irresponsibly providing large sums via a number of mechanisms.”
By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus

The prime minister of Denmark laid flowers on Sunday, Feb. 15, at the site where the day before a Jewish man was shot in the head and killed while volunteering as a security guard outside of a synagogue in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Was the murder of Dan Uzan, the son of an Israeli father, an act in which the Danish government was indirectly complicit?

When Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt laid the wreath outside of the synagogue, she offered her condolences to the slain man’s family and to the whole Jewish community. She said she and her entire country were devastated by Uzan’s murder, and by all that happened in Copenhagen on Feb. 14.

“A man has lost his life in a service of that synagogue and we are devastated,” Thorning-Schmidt said, speaking to Jewish Danes.

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.

What is the Islamic State?

Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as “not Islamic” and as al-Qaeda’s “jayvee team,” statements that reflected confusion about the group, and may have contributed to significant strategic errors.

In the midst of recent horrific acts of terror, from burning the Jordanian pilot to storming the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a Danish café holding a free speech conference and the Great Synagogue of Copenhagen, many opinion leaders scratch their heads over President Obama and his administration’s refusal to couple the words “Islam” with “terrorism.” The result is the label “violent extremism,” awkwardly redundant in large part because what makes its referents “extreme” is precisely their use of violence. Many exasperatingly surmise the administration must be naïve, even delusional, and fails to understand the threat we face. Most then correctly warn that if we cannot accurately name the threat, we stand little chance of effectively dealing with it.

Two Narratives

This is not, however, a failure to understand the nature of Islam and its connection with modern day terror at all. Rather, it is the result of perhaps the most defining characteristic of Obama’s presidency: savvy rhetoric that, quite deliberately, disguises his actions and policies. From “you can keep your doctor” to “this will be the most transparent administration in history,” the President is facile juggling two vastly different narratives; one to trap and control public attention while the other grounds his policies. And as with the IRS targeting of conservatives, the Benghazi assassinations, Obamacare and so on, when the actions invariably so conflict with the rhetoric, we struggle to explain the dissonance in ways we can most accept. In the case of Obama’s dealings with Islam and, in particular our Islamic enemies, however, finding an acceptable explanation is exceptionally frustrating because we are generally unfamiliar with Islam. Consequently, we indulge in (and a compliant media even clings to) explanations that Obama is naïve, incompetent, or psychologically stressed because they are more comforting than recognizing the alternative.

On a sunny Saturday in September 2009, with Wisconsin in the throes of tea party fervor, conservative starlet Michelle Malkin fired up a crowd of thousands at a lakefront park in Milwaukee with rhetoric about White House czars and union thugs and the “culture of dependency that they have rammed down our throats.”

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, a Republican candidate for governor, casually attired in a red University of Wisconsin Badgers sweatshirt, stepped to the podium to amplify the message. “We’re going to take back our government,” he shouted, jabbing the air with a finger. The attendees whooped and clapped. “We’ve done it here, we can do it in Wisconsin and, by God, we’re going to do it all across America.”

In a way, the event was Scott Walker’s graduation to the political major leagues. The audience had been delivered up by Americans for Prosperity, a tea party organizing group founded by Charles and David Koch, the billionaire energy executives whose fortune helps shape Republican politics. With Americans for Prosperity, the brothers had harnessed the tea party’s energy in service of their own policy goals, including deregulation and lower taxes. And in Walker, they’d found the perfect instrument to help carry them out. The rally was one of the first times they’d joined forces.

A federal judge in South Texas on Monday temporarily blocked President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration, giving a coalition of 26 states time to pursue a lawsuit that aims to permanently stop the orders.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen’s decision comes after a hearing in Brownsville, Texas, in January and puts on hold Obama’s orders that could spare as many as five million people who are in the U.S. illegally from deportation.
Hanen wrote in a memorandum accompanying his order that the lawsuit should go forward and that without a preliminary injunction the states will “suffer irreparable harm in this case.”
“The genie would be impossible to put back into the bottle,” he wrote, adding that he agreed with the plaintiffs’ argument that legalizing the presence of millions of people is a “virtually irreversible” action.
The federal government is expected to appeal the ruling to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Neither the White House nor the Justice Department had any immediate comment early Tuesday.
The first of Obama’s orders – to expand a program that protects young immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the U.S. illegally as children – was set to start taking effect Wednesday. The other major part of Obama’s order, which extends deportation protections to parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who have been in the country for some years, was not expected to begin until May 19.

Israel outpaces all other countries for London IPOs

Last year was a banner one for Israeli exits – and especially for IPOs, according to the IVC Research Center and Meitar Liquornik Geva Leshem Tal law firm. Altogether, some two dozen Israeli companies went public in 2014, accounting for $2.1 billion of the nearly $7 billion raised in 99 Israeli tech exits.

Most of those IPOs were on the NASDAQ, but London turned out to be a close second. Nine Israeli firms listed on the London Stock Exchange, two on the Main Market (for well established companies) and seven on the AIM, the international Alternative Investment Market for smaller start-ups. More Israeli firms went public in London than from any other country, other than the UK itself.

To celebrate, some 30 CEOs and CFOs of Israeli companies took part last week in an event with representatives of the London Stock Exchange, organized by UK Trade & Investment at the British Embassy in Israel. The British Embassy, as the representative of the London Stock Exchange in Israel, assists Israeli companies in raising funds in London.

Jewish, Arab vendors in New York turf war Sides trade accusations of land-grabbing, terrorism in spat over sidewalk space outside Rockefeller Center

It seems even the US isn’t free of territorial disputes between Jews and Arabs.

Under the headline “Intifooda,” The New York Post reported Sunday that the operators of a kosher food cart in Manhattan have been involved in a bitter turf war with the Egyptian owners of a rival establishment.

According to the report, the Holy Rollers kosher cart, operated by vendors Yisroel Mordowitz and Yosef Salzbank, settled near Rockefeller Center last Monday after wandering the streets of the city in search of a prime spot.

After the first day, Holy Rollers was rolling in money — some $2,000 — from selling its deli fare.