RUTHFULLY YOURS

Mark Twain has often been appropriately recognized as a friend, admirer and defender of the Jewish people. However, commonly overlooked has been his understanding of values and perspectives that are deeply ingrained in Jewish thought. This is a subject I will deal with here and which I believe will reveal some remarkable insights by Twain in his well acclaimed historical essay in Harpers, “Concerning the Jew.”

In the essay Twain delineates a number of characteristics of Jews reflective of their cultural heritage that he extols most highly. These include citizenship, family cohesion, honesty in business and an overall intelligence in business and life. One trait, however, that he doesn’t mention and which ironically is exhibited through his own life is a capacity for human or spiritual growth. In Judaism this is powered by “oral Torah” or the ongoing effort to interpret the Torah in expanded ways in light of continuing experiences. In his own life Twain experienced enormous growth through his life experiences which although infinitesimal compared to the cultural experiences of the Jews throughout time are nonetheless in the same direction. This is well reflected in his “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” where the character spiritually matures through his experiences.Upon considering the first of these characteristics “citizenship” Twain in his essay remarks on the low crime and high sense of order within the Jewish community. Here we may observe that the Torah itself warns that one should not place a stumbling block in the path of the blind, which becomes a metaphorical model against exploiting the vulnerable of helpless.

In yet another demonstration of contempt for the Constitution, President Obama and his administration are pursuing what the New York Times characterizes as a “sweeping international climate change agreement to compel nations to cut their planet-warming fossil fuel emissions” — absent any input from Congress.

The Constitution requires a two-thirds majority approval by the Senate to ratify any legally binding treaty. The Obama administration plans to sidestep that requirement by calling the agreement a “politically binding” deal that would substitute for an actual treaty. It would consist of voluntary pledges, combined with obligations from a 1992 U.N. treaty known as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Control. That 22-year-old agreement was reached at the “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The U.S. Senate ratified the agreement on October 7, 1992, and President Bush Sr. signed it six days later, making it legally binding.

The Obama administration contends that simply adding the additional voluntary pledges to the agreement obviates the need for another ratification process. “There’s some legal and political magic to this,” said Jake Schmidt, an expert in global climate negotiations with the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leftist advocacy group. “They’re trying to move this as far as possible without having to reach the 67-vote threshold.”

Not magic. Just another attempt by the Obama administration to kick Congress to the curb in pursuit of an agenda that has absolutely no chance of getting majority approval in Congress, much less a two-thirds vote of approval in the Senate. In 1997, the Kyoto climate control treaty was rocketed into oblivion with a 96-0 bipartisan vote. Another effort was undertaken in Copenhagen in 2009, but once again the attempt to forge a legally binding agreement failed. Obama attended that conference, hoping to put America in alignment with the global community, but he did so with no support whatsoever from Republicans, along with opposition from several Democrats representing states that rely heavily on coal power for energy and jobs. Democrats made it clear they wouldn’t accept any treaty or agreement threatening that status quo. In 2010, “cap and trade” legislation failed in the Senate for the same reason.

The Obama administration is undeterred by such inconvenient realities. In June, once again absent any input from Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed regulations aimed at cutting existing greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants 30 percent by 2030. The move has engendered lawsuits in the in the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia from at least a dozen coal-reliant states. It has also engendered a warning from North Dakota Democrat Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, whose state relies on coal-generated electricity for a whopping 80 percent of its power needs. “When that is done, and the stake is through the heart of coal, they will come for you next,” Heitkamp told representatives from the natural gas industry. She also added a dose of reality to the mix. “In my lifetime we will not transition away from coal,” she contended.

In March Frontpage profiled Californian Nicholas Michael Teausant, indicted for attempting to support ISIS, a foreign terrorist organization. Teausant remains in custody but recently granted an enlightening interview to Sam Stanton and Denny Walsh of the Sacramento Bee.

In March Teausant was en route to Canada and near the border texted a friend who told him “if I get myself out of the country everything will be taken care of, they’ll pay for me to go over there, they’ll give me a gun.” He had been in the National Guard but had not brought along a weapon. His friend also told him “They’ll give me everything I could possibly want. They’ll take care of my family, and that I can always come back to America when this is over.” The friend turned out to be an FBI informer, and that led to his arrest.

“I’m not going to say that I’m completely innocent and I have no fault in this,” Teausant told the reporters. “Some of it is my fault, yes. But then again I also feel that if the informant hadn’t come along I would have just been making idle boasts and I wouldn’t have done anything.” But there’s more to the story.

Teausant told the reporters that while living in Montana he met a beautiful Muslim woman who would speak only to Muslim men. That spurred his interest in Islam, but it wasn’t only romantic. The zealous convert came to believe his daughter’s day care center was “Zionist.” He wanted to blow it up but claims he told the informant he would only bomb the place when nobody was there. Teausant doesn’t recall discussing any bomb attacks in Los Angeles but on fighting overseas he showed good recall. The newly minted Muslim soon became convinced that the government of Syria needed to be taken down.

“I wanted to go help fight for these people because the New Hampshire slogan is ‘Live Free or Die,’” he told the Bee reporters. “In 1775, we rebelled against Britain because we felt we were being tyrannized and conquered, so we wanted our own freedom. So I felt like I could try and help with that, and give the people freedom that they were fighting for.”

When it comes to Iraq, Obama lectures the Sunnis and the Shiites on getting along and forming a government that won’t exist for the sole benefit of a single group at the expense of the other.

But in America he runs exactly that type of government.

Iraqis are not stupid. They look at the news and they see Ferguson and Al Sharpton screaming at angry mobs and know that Obama is not practicing what he preaches to them. Obama may have forced out Maliki, but his own tribal politics are hard to distinguish from those of Maliki.

Obama rules not by inspiring people, but, like Maliki and ISIS, he divides and conquers, setting people against each other. Obama’s America is as spitefully tribal as Maliki’s Iraq. Its bosses, like Eric Holder, hold a divisive worldview that excludes much of the country.

Al Sharpton, Obama’s close political ally, and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, his mentor, are familiar types in Iraq. You can find a thousand Jeremiah Wrights on any given Friday screaming about killing the Shiites or the Sunnis. You can find a million Al Sharptons community organizing local hatreds until they explode.

The Sharptons and Wrights of Iraq have guns because the machinery of law and order there has collapsed even more comprehensively than it has in Detroit. In a country divided by ethnic and sectarian politics, a multicultural military and police are incapable of enforcing the law and uninterested in standing up to violence from their own people.

Those are the ugly tribal politics that Obama has brought to America. Instead of repairing the economy, he focused on wealth redistribution. Instead of bringing Americans together as one nation, he calculatedly tore them apart around manufactured crises of race, gender, class and religion. He pitted blacks against whites, liberal Protestants against Catholics, the poor against the middle class and the cities against the suburbs.

The truth is hanging by a thread. Beheaded journalist’s father: “I didn’t know how brutal they were.”

This is what I wrote a month ago, in the first dispatch in this series:

“Western media fervently defend the fighting forces of a jihad movement that would just as easily behead them as enslave them but would never ever allow them to report freely as they are doing today. Even though they abuse that freedom, they enjoy it.”

This week we were treated to the stark beheading video of American reporter James Foley. It is normal that the bereaved family would pay tribute to Foley’s courage maintained “up to the last minute.” He was on his knees. His last words were an indictment of his native land for conducting offensive air strikes against the Caliphate. It is fair to assume that if he had stood tall and faced the man who was preparing to saw off his head the video would not have been broadcast. If he had tried to wrest the knife out of the hands of his executioner we would never have known. Only videos of submissive victims are offered for the world’s contemplation.

That’s Da’esh [I don’t use ISIS or IS, I call them what they call themselves]. In another frame, in Gaza, we have surly black-hooded Hamas executioners pushing around some pathetic men accused of collaborating with the Israelis and shot on the spot. The condemned have what looks like paper bags on their heads.

The truth hangs by a thread from Da’esh to Hamas. But the journalists, who could find themselves one day on their knees, mouthing accusations, ready for beheading, won’t make the connection. They are already parroting the words of their eventual captors. Western journalists in Gaza, submissive to Hamas, report on the summary executions with eerie approval. For example, Ian Lee for CNN. Yup! Collaborating in wartime is serious business. Some of the executions were public. Hmph! It’s a warning to anyone that might think of giving information to the Israelis.

Determinism is the number one thief of one’s identity as an autonomous individual.
Is anyone “born” anything, except tabula rasa? Is one “born” a Jew, or a Catholic, or a Muslim, or Buddhist, or even an atheist?
Recently, I writer I esteem for his consistently perspicuous and insightful observations on foreign affairs, domestic policies, and modern culture, writing about being Jewish, made this startling statement:
“Jewish is a group identity. There is no such thing as an individual Jew. No man is an island and certainly no Jew is. Someone who is not part of the Jewish people is not a Jew.”
Yes, being Jewish might be a “group identity.” But Jews are individuals first, Jewish second. People can choose to be part of a “group,” but they’re still individuals making individual choices. An individual has no innate collective identity, unless he chooses one, and then it is not “innate.” There is nothing in any person’s genes or physical makeup that determines the content of his mind. Groups or collectives don’t think. One can choose to join a mob or a political party or a fraternity and the like, but this is making an individual choice. No one is destined to be drawn inexorably or helplessly into an imaginary gestalt, however benign or malevolent it might be.
Regardless of one’s circumstances, the element of volition and choice is ever present in any individual, regardless of the circumstances of his birth. One can be born into a Jewish family, a Muslim family, a Catholic one, even an atheist one, a Zulu tribe, and so on, and be raised in strict accordance with the dogma or tenets, traditions, or beliefs shared by that group. At any point in one’s life, one still has the capability of questioning whether what one is taught is true or false. If one has the courage, or the curiosity, one can step outside of one’s “group,” and observe it from the outside. Groups are not necessarily unbreakable chains or boast of “force fields” that prevent one from leaving them.
Tabula rasa, a Roman Latin term for “clean slate,” is an all- important ingredient in this issue. One can write one’s own slate, or let others write it. One can form one’s own independent mind, or allow others to determine what is in it and therefore make one dependent. It’s that simple.

“Praise be to God, each day we conquer the American Jews like our conquests over the Jews of Israel. Your brother, Sofian”

One should know several things about “Brother Sofian”: his full name is Sofian Zakkout; he is a Palestinian “proudly born in Gaza“; he lives in Florida; and – despite the outrageous statement above and others like them, the organization he runs is funded by agencies of the U.S. government and has excellent relations with a range of Jewish organizations.
Screenshot July 25 Facebook post

Screenshot of Sofian Zakkout’s Facebook post from July 25, 2014, where he writes only in Arabic: “Praise be to God, each day we conquer the American Jews like our conquests over the Jews of Israel.”

Zakkout served on the US Commission on Civil Rights–Florida State Advisory Committee in 2002-10. In 2005, the FBI attended an event organized by Zakkout’s non-profit, the American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA). Jeff Green of the FBI’s Miami office explained there: “We just want to let the community know we’re part of the community like they are. We protect the rights they have. Events like this help us to promote a greater understanding of community and law enforcement.”

The Department of Homeland Security awarded $70,000 in 2007 to an organization Zakkout founded, American Muslims for Emergency Relief (AMER). The Miami-Dade County Corps Council awarded Zakkout for his “outstanding” service. Miami-Dade commissioners appointed him to the Community Relations Board and the Asian Advisory Board. Former Broward County Mayor Kristin Jacobs appointed him to the Broward County Diversity Advisory Council. As of 2010, his bio informs us, he was an active board member at Miami Dade County Citizen Corps, Miami-Dade Crime Watch for Citizens, and Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers.

Zakkout boasted in 2011 that “The Justice Department and other government agencies have put my organization’s name on their list of organizations that they are going to work with.”

As for Jewish organizations: He took part in J Street South Florida’s 2012 Passover Seder. He is co-chair of the Jewish-Arab Dialogue Association (JADA). He spoke at Temple Israel in Miami. He co-sponsored an “Interfaith Dialogue” at Temple Sinai in North Miami Beach. At the same synagogue, a rabbi lauded Zakkout in a sermon, no less: “I know you work very hard to build understanding and respect between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities, so again, thank you.”

J Street SederScreenshot of the J Street South Florida Seder with AMANA, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fort Lauderdale, and Secular Jewish Humanists.

How can someone delusional about Israel and with such repulsive intentions toward American Jews have these prestigious affiliations and activities? Simple: In part, by hiding his views from those who would object. He posted his “conquer the American Jews” statement only in Arabic; in English, he limited himself to less incendiary statements.

In part too, Zakkout spouts politically-correct verbiage that masks his meaning. Witness these lines from AMANA’s website:

“Our mission at AMANA is to make our communities stronger, safer and best prepared to respond to the danger of Islamophobia and the threats of terrorism, hate crimes, public health issues and disasters of all kinds (may Allah forbid). Our mission is to provide a better understanding of Islam to Muslims and information on Islam and Muslims to non Muslims. Our mission is to build more understanding more knowledge and respect between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities.”

That last sentence stands in stark contrast to his statement that each day “we conquer the American Jews.”
Zakkout was also an organizer of the July 20 anti-Israel demonstration in Miami where the crowd yelled “We are Hamas,” “Hamas kicked your ass,” and “We are Jihad.” In Arabic, the protestors also chanted “Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jew, Muhammad’s army will return” a reference to a seventh-century massacre of the Jewish community of Khaybar. Video of the protest below:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/jamie-glazov/1400-child-victims-of-muslim-rape-gangs-discovered-in-rotherham-uk/print/

A horrifying news report in The Telegraph has confirmed that 1,400 children were discovered as victims of Muslim rape gangs and prostitution rings in Rotherham, UK, while authorities and child protection services turned a blind eye in order to avoid being called “racist.”

Daniel Greenfield’s blog at The Point deals with this shameful, outrageous and terrifying story: “UK Police Arrested Parents Trying to Stop Muslims from Raping their Children.”

On this occasion, Frontpage is re-running The Glazov Gang’s special 2-part series with Gavin Boby of the Law and Freedom Foundation, on this horrifying reality of Muslim rape gangs in the UK and how the Left is facilitating their vicious and barbaric crimes against helpless young girls. The series crystallizes why the horrible details emerging about the discovered 1,400 children victims in Rotherham was a Muslim crime the Left allowed to occur.

In Part I, Boby shares his battle against “Muslim Rape Gangs in the U.K.” and in Part II, he discusses his report on this horrifying phenomenon, ‘Easy Meat,‘ and takes us “Inside the World of Muslim Rape Gangs”:

  Whatever they may disagree about, Western leaders are in complete agreement about one thing: the new self-styled caliphate, the Islamic State, has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam. It’s a comforting, reassuring vision for Western non-Muslims facing a massive influx of Muslim immigrants and jittery about the prospect of Islamic terrorism, except for just […]

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/the-ferguson-lynch-mob-and-what-it-doesnt-know-on-the-glazov-gang/ This week’s Glazov Gang was guest-hosted by Ann-Marie Murrell and joined by Monty Morton, Nonie Darwish and Karen Siegemund. The guests gathered to discuss, The Ferguson Lynch Mob and What it Doesn’t Know, analyzing the the Left’s rush to judgment, division and hate — without the facts (starts at 15:00 mark). The guests also […]