RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2014/02/an-undeserved-triumph/?utm_source=Mosaic+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=eb420373b7-2014_2_12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0b0517b2ab-eb420373b7-41165129
The Triumph and Tragedy of Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land
Ari Shavit’s new book was praised for balancing the story of Zionism’s accomplishments with criticism of its founding sins–but his work distorts history and hurts the chances for peace.
peace.
“Contrary to many of Shavit’s reviewers, there is nothing courageous about this kind of writing that is plainly wrong on the facts and relies on a false historical interpretation to enforce its moral logic. The refugees of Lydda may still be marching in Shavit’s vivid but distorted imagination, but in reality they and their descendants – now totaling 5-7 million souls – have been locked up for the past 65 years in miserable refugee camps. It is not because of Zionism that they are still there. Rather it’s their own leaders and the Arab regimes who want them to remain locked up.”

Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land may well be the most commercially successful, yet also critically acclaimed book by an Israeli writer explaining his country’s complicated history to American readers. It made the New York Times best seller list for several weeks and was praised profusely in most major book review outlets, including a rave by the New Republic’s literary editor Leon Wieseltier on the cover of the Times’ Sunday book review. The review’s editors then selected Shavit’s book as one of the 100 best books of the year. Meanwhile, over at the Grey Lady’s editorial pages, columnist Thomas Friedman chimed in, touting Shavit’s book as a “must-read” and recommended that President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu read it before their next contentious telephone conversation. Shavit also won the National Jewish Book Award in the category of Jewish history and has spoken to overwhelmingly appreciative audiences at Jewish Y’s and synagogues around the country.

Why has Washington looked the other way as Moscow revived Cold War weaponry? http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303442704579358571590251940?mod=Opinion_newsreel_8 The Reagan administration’s 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty is celebrated as the “cornerstone” of nuclear arms control. But Moscow has openly flouted the spirit and apparently the letter of the INF Treaty at least since 2008, signaling that it is determined […]

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304558804579376793890614128?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop A life-like statue of a guy sleepwalking in his underwear awakens a protest by campus feminists. A realistic-looking statue of a sleepwalking schlub in his underpants has caused an outrage at Wellesley, a women’s college in Massachusetts near Boston. The students are so disturbed that they want him—I mean, it—gone. Grab the smelling salts, […]

http://www.d-intl.com/2014/02/10/frances-united-front-of-jew-hatred/?lang=en

Parts of the French left have no problems participating in anti-Semitic demonstrations demanding that Jews be kicked out of France. The Socialist government is less than pleased.

PARIS. What happened in the streets of Paris on the 26th of January? On the eve of Shoah Remembrance Day, a significant contingent of demonstrators marching in the Jour de Colère [Day of Rage] howled “Jews, get out of France” and other vicious anti-Semitic slogans.

the best coverage of the march I have seen begins with a display of Islamic Jew hatred on the Champs Elysées in October 2012. Then, scenes of wild Dieudonné fans mocking the Shoah alternate with choice excerpts from the Day of Rage, illustrating converging branches of Jew hatred packed into a cocktail of contemptuous destructive rage.

One week later, on February 2nd, a far larger crowd marched peacefully for five hours with absolutely no violence, anti-Semitism, or disrespect for the République. The Manif’ pour tous [Everyone’s protest march] is a movement created last year in an attempt to block the passage of the mariage pour tous [marriage for everyone] Bill. Though the Hollande government tried desperately to link the two movements, the difference is visible to the naked eye and confirmed by closer examination of the people, the discourse, and the outcome.

The Left, which is never more than a heartbeat away from the barricades, adores street protests… when it is in the Opposition. Today, an embattled government with nothing to show for its first 18 months in office but a tawdry politico-sexual scandal at the summit is tut-tutting about “baseless” demonstrations. The JDC [Jour de Colère] is, apparently, the brainchild of Béatrice Bourges, a dissident of the MPT [Manif’ pour Tous]. Exasperated with the failure to prevent passage of the same-sex marriage law, Bourges created an aggressive Printemps Français [French Spring] faction that engaged in battles with the police, easily used by the government to discredit the squeaky clean MPT movement that had mobilized at least half a million. Having failed to take over leadership of the MPT, Bourges sought new allies and new forms of action.

Ten days before the Day of Rage, in a debate with Pierre Cassen of the anti-Islamization site Riposte Laïque, Béatrice Bourges presented her analysis of same-sex marriage and parenthood, by adoption and eventually artificial insemination and womb rental, as part of a global project of “transhumanism.” The plan is to create a New Man hors sol [without national identity] and hors sexe [without sexual identity], a slave of an oligarchy determined to rule the world by turning people into featureless units of production and consumption. Her choice of villains and vocabulary ring with the familiar string of adjectives often associated, in times of trouble, with Jews: “stateless cosmopolitan unscrupulous money-grubbing demons of finance …”

Cassen announced he would not participate in the Day of Rage after Dieudonné encouraged his followers to join the troops. Bourges countered, helter skelter, that Dieudonné himself wouldn’t attend, the best way to discourage his acolytes was to ignore them, but it doesn’t matter if they do come because this is the Day for all the rhymes and reasons of Rage, no one should be excluded. Expressed rage, she said, is less prone to violence than repressed rage. These and other predictions about attendance—“it will be a tsunami”– and results—“the government has feet of clay, a few good blows and it will topple”– turned out to be equally inaccurate. I have not found on the Jour de Colère or Printemps Français any statement sites of disapproval of the anti-Semitic slogans, chants, and signs.

http://www.danielpipes.org/14063/obama-hollow-promises-abroad As U.S. credibility and stature diminish in world affairs, the American president and his secretaries of state and defense engage in eloquent denial. Unfortunately for them, realities trump words, even persuasive ones. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, “where the water-cooler chatter was about America’s waning influence in the Middle East,” John Kerry […]

http://www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.co.il/2014/02/israel-cannot-lose.html Israelis know that the Jewish State cannot afford to lose a single war or conflict.  In fact prevention of any loss of innocent life is paramount to Israelis.  And a determined “refusal to give up” is almost a national character trait that can be seen in many other aspects of Israeli society. Israel is […]

  “Five centuries ago, the expulsion happened partly because the Iberian rulers wanted the Jews’ assets. Now we see efforts to welcome back the Jews partly for the same reason.” — Michael Freund The Spanish government has approved a law that would allow descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled from the country in 1492 to seek […]

The project on elections that I am doing with Family Security Matters is about to debut. This site will be the first to give you full information on every single candidate running for Senate and Congress – incumbents as well as their challengers in every single state.

Mostly it will be done alphabetically starting with Alabama, Alaska, Arizona and Arkansas. The mighty states of Texas and Illinois have their primaries in March and as soon as they are tallied and victors emerge, both those states will be fully featured.

On a personal level, although this is hard work, I am delighted to learn how many wonderful candidates and incumbents there are in both parties- how many are patriotic Americans, how many are veterans of wars that started after the draft was terminated, how many really care about the future of this country, and finally, although it is not one of the priority issues listed there are links in every case to their views on Israel, and, bless them, there are hundreds who have shown strong fidelity to the unbreakable and critical bonds between the United States and Israel.

I am not paid, nor do I expect to be paid for these services, but if you wish to contribute to this worthy project which is quite expensive to produce, please support Family Security Matters- my partners and friends and allies.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/about/

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-ignorance-and-hypocrisy-behind-oil-export-bans?f=puball

Help consumers, security, environment by eliminating prohibition on exporting US oil and gas

US oil and gas production was already declining, when the 1973 Arab oil embargo sent oil and gasoline prices skyrocketing and created block-long lines at gas stations. Increased domestic production could have eased the supply and price crunch, but the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill had resulted in congressional leasing and drilling moratoriums on federal offshore and onshore lands.

Though it voted 50-49 to build the Alaska pipeline, Congress refused to allow more drilling. Instead, it legislated a 55-mph speed limit, mileage standards for vehicles and a ban on exporting domestically produced crude oil. The speed limit was eventually lifted, but drilling bans expanded, the mileage rules tightened, the export ban remained, and the United States increasingly imported more oil at higher prices.

However, quietly and under the federal and environmentalist radar, America’s oil industry improved and expanded its horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (aka, fracking) technologies – on state and private lands, where DC regulators and pressure groups had little sway. The unprecedented boom that followed sent US oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids (propane) production sharply upward for the first time in decades. America’s oil output rose 30% just between 2011 and 2013, to 7.4 million barrels per day. The Green mantra that we were depleting petroleum supplies was smashed on the fractured rocks of reality.

Suddenly, the United States was importing less oil than at any time since 1995; millions of oil patch and related jobs were created; frack state royalty and tax revenues skyrocketed; natural gas prices plummeted; and the cheaper fuels and feed stocks fostered a US petrochemical and manufacturing renaissance. The fracking revolution also enabled companies to export more gasoline, kerosene, lubricants, solvents, asphalt and other finished products (since the government never banned refined product exports). Those exports have greatly improved the nation’s balance of trade and gross domestic product.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-faltering-american-foreign-policy

At President Obama’s State of The Union Address scant attention was given to foreign policy. He did note that “the war in Afghanistan is coming to an end;” but in reality the war continues. It just so happens the U.S. will be absent from it. Yet the truncated reporting on foreign policy is suggestive. Could it be there is little to report or is it more telling to suggest that there is little good news to report?

Wherever one turns on the global stage, conflict is occurring or is likely to emerge.

The North Koreans are about to engage in their fourth nuclear test. Although unannounced, Iranian scientists will be in attendance in order to learn how to miniaturize a nuclear device for transport on a missile.

International organizations claim that President Assad has destroyed only six percent of his poison gas arsenal in violation of his promise and assurances from Russia. Syria is entering its fourth year of conflict with about 120,000 people killed.

The war in Syria has spilled over into Lebanon and Jordan with Hezballah continuing to play an insidious role as a surrogate for Iranian ambitions in the region.

President Erdogan of Turkey, President Obama’s “closest ally,” is in a fragile political position as a result of a failing economy and a political scandal. His rhetoric has become anti-American and pro-Saudi.