RUTHFULLY YOURS

J. E. Dyer is a retired US Naval intelligence officer who served around the world, afloat and ashore, from 1983 to 2004. Her last operations in the Navy were Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom in 2003, and she retired at the rank of Commander. Read more by her” http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/j-e-dyer/rock-hard-place-syria/2013/09/03/0/?print….”Rock Hard Place-Syria”
http://libertyunyielding.com/2013/12/16/peace-in-our-time-belarus-missiles-and-the-revenge-of-the-reset/

For whatever reason, peace is not busting out at all over. After months of coyness and denials from Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, Russia has deployed the first of what will reportedly be a full squadron of fighter jets to a base in Belarus, where they will remain deployed for defensive alerts against – well, NATO. Hard as that is for members of NATO to believe, given the parlous state of our unity, purpose, and military readiness.

The former Soviet Union used bases in what was then a “federated socialist republic” in Belarus during the Cold War. But the Russians will be using a different base this time. Their Su-27 Flanker jets will operate out of Baranovichi, where the Belarusian Air Force has had its main base for the last two decades.

Baranovichi has special historical significance, having been disputed for centuries between Russia and Poland. The Poles held it, off and on, up through the beginning of World War II; by the end of the war, after the death struggle between Soviet Russia and Germany, Baranovichi was in Russian hands, and the Poles who were still there in 1944 and 1945 were forcibly deported to the Far East and Central Asia. About half of Baranovichi’s population had been Jewish, in the century preceding World War II; during the period of German occupation, virtually all of the city’s 12,000 Jews were sent to the death camps. Some 250 are known to have survived.

As the Pax Americana fades, history is back with a vengeance. Everywhere Russia goes – or China, or any modern mover and shaker – there will be history trodden on, scattered like broken glass. Russia remembers, and means to make points with her geographic choices, her timing, and the choreographed nature of her activities. Poland has good reason to be concerned.

Singling out Israelis for an academic boycott is not only a blatant example of double standards; it is an act of complicity with the enduring prejudice against Jews.http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.563920 The American Studies Association has just issued its first ever call for an academic boycott. No, it wasn’t against China, which imprisons dissenting academics. It wasn’t against […]

http://carolineglick.com/kerry-forces-israels-moment-of-decision/

There was a ghoulish creepiness to US Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Israel last week. Here we were, beset by the greatest winter storm in a hundred years. All roads to Jerusalem were sealed off. Tens of thousands of Jerusalemites and residents of surrounding areas were locked down in their houses, without power, heat, telephone service or water.

And all of the sudden, out of nowhere, Kerry appeared. As Hamas-ruled Gazans begged the supposedly hated IDF to come and save them from the floods, and as Israel took over rescue operations for stranded Palestinians living under the rule of the PLO ’s gangster kleptocracy in Judea and Samaria, here was Kerry, telling us that we’d better accept the deal he plans to present us next month, or face the wrath of the US and Europe, and suffer another Palestinian terror war.

What is going on? Why can’t Kerry leave Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the rest of the country alone, even for a week, in the middle of a blizzard of biblical proportions? According to leaks from the now five month old negotiations, after 20 rounds of talks, the Palestinians have not budged from the positions they have held to for the past 50 years. They do not accept Israel’s right to exist. They do not recognize the existence of the Jewish people. They do not believe that the Jews have the right to freedom or self-determination. They insist on taking control of our 3,000 year old capital. They demand that we surrender our ability to defend ourselves from foreign aggression and Palestinian attacks and infiltration from the east.

There is nothing new here, of course, This was the case 13 years ago at the Camp David summit. This was the case during the Annapolis summit in 2007 and 2008. This was the case when PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas rejected then prime minister Ehud Olmert’s offer of peace in 2008.

Facing the Palestinians’ continued defiance of the very notion of peaceful coexistence with Israel, Kerry is planning to present his own peace deal next month and try to force Israel to accept it. Although the text of Kerry’s deal has not yet been revealed, we know exactly what it will involve just by listening to what he has already told us.

http://spectator.org/articles/57118/after-newtown-wasted-year From now on, whenever liberals demand support for gun control because — as they always say — it’s to protect our children, the only proper response is to laugh out loud. We’re now a year after the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school massacre in which twenty children were killed as well as six school staff […]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/15/editorial-ballot-box-wizardry/ Stealing elections is an old game politicians play. Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president, got to the U.S. Senate in 1948 by “winning” the closest race in Texas history by a margin of 87 votes out of more than a million cast. An election judge in tiny Alice, Texas, said he counted more than […]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/15/singer-israels-fateful-decision/#ixzz2ndUhIsoxThe Geneva Interim Accord on Iran’s nuclear programs may trigger Israeli military action. As these talks continue and drag on, look for a startling development: Israel may attack Iran’s heavy-water reactor — now being completed near Arak — arguing that Iran does not need to manufacture weapons-grade plutonium if its nuclear programs are truly peaceful […]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/13/us-navy-china-showdown-chinese-try-halt-us-cruiser/

A Chinese naval vessel tried to force a U.S. guided missile warship to stop in international waters recently, causing a tense military standoff in the latest case of Chinese maritime harassment, according to defense officials.

The guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens, which recently took part in disaster relief operations in the Philippines, was confronted by Chinese warships in the South China Sea near Beijing’s new aircraft carrier Liaoning, according to officials familiar with the incident.

“On December 5th, while lawfully operating in international waters in the South China Sea, USS Cowpens and a PLA Navy vessel had an encounter that required maneuvering to avoid a collision,” a Navy official said.

“This incident underscores the need to ensure the highest standards of professional seamanship, including communications between vessels, to mitigate the risk of an unintended incident or mishap.”

A State Department official said the U.S. government issued protests to China in both Washington and Beijing in both diplomatic and military channels.

The Cowpens was conducting surveillance of the Liaoning at the time. The carrier had recently sailed from the port of Qingdao on the northern Chinese coast into the South China Sea.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/366388/christies-right-hand-eliana-johnson ‘You can teach everything else, but you can’t teach smart, and you can’t teach loyal.” That’s how Chris Christie praised his chief of staff, Kevin O’Dowd, earlier this month, but he could just as easily have been talking about his friend and adviser Bill Palatucci. He does not often make headlines, but Palatucci is […]

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4092/europe-islamic-fundamentalism A discussion paper published by the Germany-based Gustav Stresemann Foundation — a think tank dedicated to the preservation and advancement of liberal democracy in Europe — warns that national and international Islamic organizations are increasingly putting pressure on Western politicians gradually to criminalize any critique of Islam. In a commentary on the study, the […]

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/the-alarming-rise-of-campus-anti-semitism/print/

Anti-Semitism on U.S. college campuses is growing at an alarming rate. It has escalated to the point that Jewish students on campuses have been physically attacked or threatened for peacefully demonstrating their support of Israel. Events demonizing Jews and even glorifying the murderers of Jews, in the guise of anti-Israel rhetoric, are tolerated by campus administrators despite the hostile environment such events create for Jewish students who are open about their beliefs in support of the Jewish state.

Title VI of the Civil Rights act of 1964 prohibits various forms of discrimination at federally funded programs, including higher educational institutions, but the Obama administration’s Department of Education has so far refused to enforce it against federally funded universities and colleges that have allowed anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students to go on with relative impunity. For example, in a letter rejecting a complaint that had accused a California state university of allowing a hostile environment for Jewish students to exist on campus, the education department’s Office for Civil Rights wrote: “In the university environment, exposure to such robust and discordant expressions, even when personally offensive and hurtful, is a circumstance that a reasonable student in higher education may experience. In this context, the events that the complainants described do not constitute actionable harassment.”

The same administration that decries even the slightest hint of so-called Islamophobia has treated hate speech and threats against Jewish students, which create a hostile environment for them, as the legitimate exercise of free speech. This double standard is only encouraging more hate and threats directed at Jewish students.

A study of Religious Tolerance on Campus published by the Institute for Jewish & Community Research in December of 2011, entitled “ALONE ON THE QUAD: Understanding Jewish Student Isolation on Campus,” surveyed over 1,400 students in the United States. The Institute, which claims its survey to be one of the largest and most comprehensive of its kind, found that “Over 40% of students confirm Anti-Semitism on their campus.”

“Ample anecdotal evidence suggests that, over the last decade, Jewish college students have faced rising levels of anti-Semitism on campuses across the United States,” the Institute’s report concluded. “[Anti-Israel] divestment campaigns, protests, rallies, guerrilla theater and inflammatory speakers have featured anti-Jewish rhetoric. With insufficient response from administrators, these events have developed into hostile environments, where Jewish students and others have been maligned and threatened.”

The Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents for 2012 showed an increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus – nearly triple the number of reported incidents in 2012 versus 2011. “Some of those incidents included the use of anti-Semitic imagery under the guise of anti-Israel activism, with conspiracy theories about Jewish political and economic control being voiced on campus,” the ADL report said.

To put a human face on these findings, consider the physical injury suffered by a UC Berkeley student, Jessica Felber. Ms. Felber was assaulted at a 2010 Apartheid Week event during which Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Muslim Student Association (MSA) established a mock checkpoint that included fake barbed wire and AK-47 firearms. At the time, Ms. Felber was holding a sign that said “Israel Wants Peace.” She claimed that a leader of SJP deliberately rammed a shopping cart into her back, causing injury that was serious enough to require medical attention.