RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=14477

In his data-filled book “How Civilizations Die: (And Why Islam Is Dying Too),” which was recently published in Hebrew, David Goldman offers a fresh view on the new historical reality unfolding before our eyes.
A conversation with David Goldman can take you through different worlds and times. It is a real pleasure to speak with an intellectual with his breadth of knowledge. Goldman’s book “How Civilizations Die: (And Why Islam Is Dying Too)” has recently been published in Hebrew by a new publishers, Sela Meir. For years, Goldman was a popular columnist for the Asia Times under the pen-name of Spengler. Oswald Spengler, the author of “Decline of the West,” published after the First World War, was probably the first to claim that modernity would cause a demographic decline which would bring about the demise of Western civilization. In his data-filled book, Goldman offers a fresh view on the new historical reality unfolding before our eyes.

My starting point was from the observation that major countries of the west were disappearing. I then began investigating why that should be the case. During the last few years, some really authoritative research showed the relations between religion and fertility. I don’t think that this is so much a religious issue but a sense of confidence in the future. Religious faith is one expression of confidence in the future.

You surprised me in all that regards Islam. It has been known for some time that Europe is sinking demographically, but that this should be extended to the Muslims, too?

Indeed, Muslim birthrates are falling even in Europe. The single factor that best explains fertility across the whole Muslim world is literacy. Just on a purely statistical basis one can explain 60 percent of the variations of fertility on the base of literacy. And where you have detailed data, for example in Iran or Turkey, you can show a very strong differential in fertility between women with an elementary school education, a high school education and a college education. This is also exactly what is happening in Israel, and in Judea and Samaria. I am aware that convergence of fertility is an enormously controversial issue. Yet it is clear that there has been a convergence.

What about Iran?

In the case of Iran, we have something that has literally never been seen in all of world history, astounding demographers. The average Iranian comes from a family of seven children. For the average Iranian today, if you exclude some of the minorities, fertility is 1.6 to 1.7.

The Iranian leadership speaks about this issue publically and warns against a demographic catastrophe. Now, the west has a demographic problem too, but for a rich country and a poor country this is somewhat different. On current trends, by 2040 Iran will have an elderly-dependent ratio of 30%. And this is in a country with a personal income of merely a tenth of the United States! Going from 8% of elderly dependence in 2005 to 30% in 2040 — this is a catastrophe. No poor country in the world can deal with that kind of problem. So at this point it becomes a major strategic factor. From the grim viewpoint of the current Iranian leadership, this encourages adventurism.

I do not view demographics as destiny, but I do think that it is an important factor in Iranian calculations. They are at the peak of their power; they have a big young generation; they feel they have the historic opportunity to establish Shiite dominance in the Middle East. If they lose this opportunity now, they may never have another. So their willingness to take risks, including risks related to developing weapons, supporting terrorism, intervening in Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere, is all the greater.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=6901

When U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry landed in Tel Aviv on Thursday for the 10th time in a five-month period, he was met with the news of a severe deterioration in the medical condition of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Though Sharon has been comatose for the past eight years, his kidneys began to fail two days ago. According to his doctors, this means that his other organs are soon to follow suit. It appears that Sharon, the man whose physical, military and political strength have been legendary throughout his lifetime, is now finally on his deathbed.

At a joint press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upon his arrival, and prior to a private meeting later in the evening at which Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni were also present, Kerry conveyed his sympathy to the Sharon family and the people of Israel.

“We remember his [Sharon’s] contributions, sacrifices he made to ensure the survival and the well-being of Israel,” Kerry said, before launching into a mini-speech about the “framework” agreement he had brought with him.

Kerry’s message could not have been more sadly ironic, given the circumstances of his desperate shuttle diplomacy, aimed at getting Israel to make extensive territorial and security concessions on behalf of Palestinian statehood. It was Sharon, after all, whose understanding that it would be a cold day in hell before any genuine agreement could be reached with the Palestinians caused him to undertake a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria. This disastrous move involved the evacuation of every last Jew from those areas. It was the response of the war-weary ex-general (with a late-in-life desire to be praised by the press after years of vilification) to the daily slaughter of Israeli civilians by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorists.

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/01/02/desperate-for-mideast-deal-kerry-gets-earful-from-netanyahu-about-growing-wave-of-terror-attacks/?print=1

AND ON NEW YEARS EVE, NETANYAHU RELEASED 26 MORE TERRORISTS…SO HIS SERMONETTES RING HOLLOW…..RSK

http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Israel-prepares-to-release-third-group-of-Palestinian-prisoners-336601

Secretary of State John Kerry was in Jerusalem today determined to ram through a Mideast peace deal despite recently spurning Israel on the Iran nuclear deal and pressing forward without the cooperation of half of the Palestinian territories.

Kerry and President Obama are both desperate to make the forging of some peace plan a legacy issue, and Kerry quickly jumped into the task after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — who was reportedly critical of Obama’s stance toward Israel — left the post.

Hamas not only dismissed Washington’s fresh push for talks over the summer, but welcomed Kerry by firing at least three rockets from Gaza into Israel over the past five days.

“I know that you’re committed to peace, I know that I’m committed to peace, but unfortunately, given the actions and words of Palestinian leaders, there’s growing doubt in Israel that the Palestinians are committed to peace,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in remarks with Kerry at his side before their meeting.

“A few days ago in Ramallah, President Abbas embraced terrorists as heroes. To glorify the murders of innocent women and men as heroes is an outrage. How can President Abbas says – how can he say that he stands against terrorism when he embraces the perpetrators of terrorism and glorifies them as heroes? He can’t stand against terrorists and stand with the terrorists. And I’m wondering what a young Palestinian would think when he sees the leader of the Palestinian people embrace people who axed innocent men and women – axed their heads or blew them up or riddled them with bullets – what’s a young Palestinian supposed to think about the future? What’s he supposed to think about what he should do vis-a-vis Israelis and vis-a-vis the state of Israel?” he continued, referring to the 26 Palestinian prisoners released by Israel as a good-faith gesture toward restarting negotiations.

“So it’s not surprising that in recent weeks Israel has been subjected to a growing wave of terrorist attacks. President Abbas didn’t see fit to condemn these attacks, even after we learned that at least in one case – I stress, at least in one case – those who served and are serving in the Palestinian security forces took part in them.”

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

In 1967, folk singer Arlo Guthrie played a song on a left-wing New York City radio station that was supposed to sum up the cultural difference between the culture and the counterculture.

On one side of the moral equation in Alice’s Restaurant you had Office Obie and the nameless army officers who were rulebound fascists and on the other side you had the easygoing hippies who believed in community, hanging out and letting things slide. Culture would drag you into court for littering with twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs as evidence while counterculture would shrug and invite you to dinner.

Culture was bureaucratically and violently absurd. Counterculture was humanely lovingly absurd.

That’s still the image that the left likes to wear like an old pair of jeans. It’s still just a bunch of easygoing fellows out to build community and take on Officer Obie’s senseless repressive rules. But then the counterculture became the culture and the left became Officer Obie.

http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/turn-off-the-light-unto-the-nations-ruth-king.html

Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion proclaimed: “History did not spoil us with power, wealth, nor with broad territories or an enormous community: however, it did grant us uncommon intellectual and moral virtue, and thus it is both a privilege and an obligation to be a light unto the nations.”

Where did that hubris-fraught term originate? From the Book of Isaiah. There are three references.

“Yea, He saith, ‘It is too light a thing for you to be My servant, to establish the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the scions of Israel, and I shall submit you as a light unto the nations, to be My salvation until the end of the earth’ (Isaiah, 49:6)

“I the Lord have called unto you in righteousness, and have taken hold of your hand, and submitted you as the people’s covenant, as a light unto the nations” (Isaiah, 42:6)

“And unto your light, nations shall walk, and kings unto the brightness of your rising” (Isaiah, 60:3)

The notion mesmerized those who aspired to become a utopian, agrarian, virtuous, socialist model to the world. It even lured some realists who wanted the nation to be admired, respected and looked upon as a role model.

In the early post-independence years, the “light” bearers of Israel were depicted as super heroes–farmers/scholars who made the desert bloom and could turn their plough shares and pruning hooks into rifles at a moment’s notice to defend their nation, yet remain devoted to the goal of achieving peace with their neighbors and eager to make sacrifices to obtain it. Who would not be delighted by this image, coming as it did only three years after the Holocaust? How comforting was it to see them as models to illuminate a dark and venal world?

But Israel’s implacable neighbors sought only to destroy it and the price of survival became a seemingly endless series of wars, which sat ill with the utopian image.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/01/how_craven_art_thou_professor.html

It is troubling that the term academic has become a term of opprobrium. But after reading the fourth volume of the Journal of Academic Freedom (JAF) published by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), it is abundantly clear why this is the case. What they call academic freedom is merely a tactic to falsify history and harm the State of Israel.

The American Association of University Professors was started in 1900 when “noted economist Edward Ross lost his job at Stanford University because Mrs. Leland Stanford did not like his views on immigrant labor and railroad monopolies.” Thus, the AAUP was formed “to ensure academic freedom for faculty members.”

Which brings us to the decision about boycotting Israeli universities and Israeli researchers. Although the American Association of University Professors is against this boycott, the authors in the latest issue of the Journal of Academic Freedom, one of AAUP’s publications, support the boycott.

Marjorie Heins in “Rethinking Boycotts” explains that “one of the many groups that sponsored the call for [boycott, divestment, and sanctions] was the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).” In fact, at Discover the Networks, one learns

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304361604579290613920542386?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories

U.S. officials believe members of Hezbollah, the militant group backed by Iran, are smuggling advanced guided-missile systems into Lebanon from Syria piece by piece to evade a secretive Israeli air campaign designed to stop them.

The moves illustrate how both Hezbollah and Israel are using Syria’s civil war as cover for what increasingly is seen as a complex and high-stakes race to prepare for another potential conflict—their own—in ways that could alter the region’s military balance.
Some components of a powerful antiship missile system have already been moved to Lebanon, according to previously undisclosed intelligence, while other systems that could target Israeli aircraft, ships and bases are being stored in expanded weapons depots under Hezbollah control in Syria, say current and former U.S. officials.

Such guided weapons would be a major step up from the “dumb” rockets and missiles Hezbollah now has stockpiled, and could sharply increase the group’s ability to deter Israel in any potential new battle, officials say.

The movements appear to serve two purposes.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/author/max-boot/ The year is still young, but I would say the New York Times’s editorial board has already retired the prize for the most irresponsible, unconvincing, and pernicious editorial of the year with “Edward Snowden, Whistle-Blower.” To get to the bottom line up front: TheTimes would like the U.S. government to offer “a plea bargain or some […]

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4116/turkey-government-crisis The unraveling of relations between Erdoğan and Gülen has begun to overshadow the details of the corruption scandal that brought it about. As the crisis of Turkey’s government and the country’s competing Islamists is deepening, the attitude of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party, known as AKP, […]

The NY Times’ Benghazi Myths — on The Glazov Gang
Hear no al-Qaeda, See no al-Qaeda.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/the-ny-times-benghazi-myths-on-the-glazov-gang/