RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.aim.org/on-target-blog/nbc-news-chooses-israel-bashing-president/

THANKS TO MOSHE PHILLIPS AFSI PHILADELPHIA FOR ALERTING ALL….RSK

Deborah Turness, the former editor of British ITV News, has been hired as NBC News’ new president. However, The New York Times reports that “Ms. Turness’s job will be smaller than her predecessor’s because she will not have oversight of MSNBC.”

“This change implies that Comcast is putting distance between the traditionally nonpartisan NBC News and the more opinionated, controversial MSNBC,” reports Brian Stelter for the Times.

Nonpartisan? Accuracy in Media wishes this were true. But unfortunately, Turness’s hiring is in fact a partisan move and is likely to further tilt NBC News’ Middle East reporting against Israel. “[S]he was familiar to top brass at NBC News because it has a partnership with ITV,” reports Joe Flint for the Los Angeles Times: “The two share reporters and resources in Africa and the Middle East.” This is important because ITV news is notoriously pro-Palestinian, and anti-Israel. In addition, according to Flint, Turness has become “something of a celebrity” in London media circles, and in 2011, she “was the only journalist who attended the 2011 state banquet held for President Obama at Buckingham Palace.”

This recent piece for American Thinker by Moshe Phillips, president of the Philadelphia Chapter of Americans for a Safe Israel (AFSI), highlights the “Israel-bashing” engaged in by ITV News and Turness herself. “Most alarmingly, Turness and two ITV colleagues won an Amnesty International UK Media Award in 2008 for their controversial, one-sided news report “Too Young to Die—Children of the Frontline” about Palestinian Arab children,” writes Phillips of Turness. “‘Too Young to Die’ was over four and a half minutes. The Israel spokesperson, Miri Eisin, was given approximately 14 seconds on camera.”

Phillips makes the point that there was no “attempt in the piece to show any evenhandedness.”

Is this the type of even-handed reporting that can be expected from NBC News under Turness’ leadership?

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Peacemaking-or-perfidy-An-open-letter-to-Peres-314963

Into the Fray: President’s embrace of “Arab Peace Initiative” at WEF speech disconcerting.
History is made of biographies of men and women who failed to forecast the future. – Shimon Peres, Amman, May 26, 2013

My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British prime minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time. – Neville Chamberlain, September 30, 1938

The Arab Peace Initiative is a meaningful change and a strategic opportunity. It replaces the strategies of war with the wisdom of peace….History will judge us not by the process of negotiations, but by its outcome. – Shimon Peres – Amman, May 26, 2013

To: Shimon Peres, President of Israel

Dear Sir,

I confess I was appalled by your speech at the World Economic Forum in Amman earlier this week. There were many elements in it I found disconcerting, but what I found particularly disturbing was your approving embrace of the so-called “Arab Peace Initiative” (API).

Devious, deceptive, disastrous

There are of course, numerous reasons why Israel should firmly reject the API as a devious, deceptive and disastrous blueprint for its demise. But this in itself is not why I find your endorsement of it so galling.

Rather it is because no one other than yourself has, in the past, better elucidated why this is so.

Indeed, you can hardly be unaware of the fact that the adoption of the API entails Israel undertaking measures that are the diametric opposite of those you once prescribed.

After all, no one other than yourself has set out a more compelling rationale why implementing the measures it calls for would provide the Arabs an opportunity to emaciate Israel, compress it back into indefensible borders and make its survival dependent solely on their discretion – creating, in your own words, “compulsive temptation to attack Israel from all directions.”

http://washingtonexaminer.com/jed-babbin-obamas-empty-warnings-to-china-wont-stop-hacking/article/2530906 A news report earlier this week said that Chinese cyberspies had stolen the designs for many of the United States’ most advanced weapon systems. In response, the article said, the Obama administration had “…escalated its warnings to the Chinese government to stop what Washington sees as rampant cybertheft.” Those warnings have very clearly fallen […]

Purged for Political Dissent?Moscow, 1936?No, Virginia, 2013!

http://sofrep.com/21395/john-brennans-political-purges-within-the-cia/

The whole sorry mess of the Obama administration is fully meeting expectations. Can it be cleaned up without blowback–domestic and international?

Whistleblowers who spoke up about Benghazi–threats to career and livelihood.

No CIA officers willing to discuss publicly the events on the ground?

IRS persecution of political rivals to the Obama regime.

DOJ selective targeting of dissident media outlets.

Massive secret collection of media outlets’ communications.

Attorney General obfuscating about his actions.

Secretary of State refused to address her actions on Benghazi.

All signs that this administration is following the path of all power-hungry statists–vicious reprisals and threats against any who dare to speak out against them.

One of the administration’s cabal–who has been hip-deep in all of their provoked international turmoil–from the Maghreb Mutinies to Benghazi, to the intra-Islamic struggle for power in Syria–is the reptilian John Brennan.

http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog/2013/05/iw-news-brief-fort-hood-fiasco-uk-jihad-denial

Islamist Watch (IW) maintains an extensive archive of news items on nonviolent Islamism in the Western world. The complete collection can be found here; lists organized by topic are accessible on the right side of the IW homepage.

The following are some of the recent developments covered in the IW database:

Fort Hood jihadist earns $278,000 while survivors suffer

The U.S. Army’s classification of the Fort Hood massacre as “workplace violence” deprives its victims of key benefits, but Major Nidal Hasan has been paid $278,000 and counting since his murderous rampage in November 2009. According to the Army, his salary cannot be halted until he is convicted. Hasan’s newly confirmed windfall “makes me sick to my stomach,” said Logan Burnett, a reservist shot by Hasan. “There have been times when my wife and I cannot afford groceries.” In March, the Army nixed Purple Hearts for soldiers like Burnett, arguing that awarding medals would “set the stage for a formal declaration that Major Hasan is a terrorist.”

As survivors look to override the “workplace violence” label in court, several congressmen are pressuring the Pentagon directly. Two House Republicans and one Democrat recently sent a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that calls the designation “irresponsible” and links it to the “‘political correctness’ that caused the horrible toll of deaths and injuries at Fort Hood. … We ask that you swiftly reclassify the victims’ deaths and injuries as ‘combat-related’ so that they and their families may qualify for the full scope of benefits provided to service members and DoD civilian employees who are killed or injured in combat.” Meanwhile, Congressman John Carter, a Texas Republican, has introduced legislation aiming to thwart future Hasans by granting whistleblower protection to military personnel who report “ideologically based threats” in the ranks. Many had been aware of Hasan’s radicalism but stayed silent out of fear

Israeli Inquiry – Al-Dura Phony Killing Staged by Palestinians On September 1, 2000, only a couple of days into the Palestinian violence against Jews that erupted at Yasser Arafat’s behest across the West Bank and Gaza, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Muhammad al-Dura, was reportedly killed by Israel during a clash with Palestinian armed forces. The […]

http://send.hadavars.com/index.php?action=message&l=2096&c=18770&m=17257&s=a317a26441993bdd8f740ee9a6c71bce

The special ties between the US and the Jewish State are uniquely driven by people-to-people, bottom-up relationship, shaped by the American public more than by the American government. US ties with the Jewish state have been exceptionally-forged by shared Judeo-Christian values.

“Americans’ sympathy for Israel is at a high-water mark,” determined a March 15, 2013 Gallup poll. According to Gallup, there is “a steady increase in relative support for Israel over the past decade…. Americans’ sympathies lean heavily toward the Israelis over the Palestinians…. Today’s 64% (compared to 12% sympathizing with the Palestinians) ties the highest Gallup has recorded in a quarter century, last seen in 1991 during the Gulf War.”

A sustained and deep identification with the Jewish state has always characterized both chambers of the US Congress, which are the most authentic representatives of the US constituent – the chief axis of the US Federalist system. Moreover, the Federalist system derived its name from the Latin term, Foedus, which means “the covenant” in a Biblical sense.

Thus, the unique roots of the enhanced American support of the Jewish state precede the 1948 founding of Israel, the 1939-1944 Holocaust and even the 1776 declaration of independence by the USA.

The foundations of America’s unique empathy with the Jewish state transcend formal treaties and the mutually-beneficial, surging US-Israel defense cooperation in the face of intensifying mutual threats. America’s covenant with the Jewish state supersedes the rapidly growing win-win US-Israel partnership on behalf of joint commercial interests.

The source of the special US-Israel covenant dates back to the 14th century, through the Pilgrims of the16th century, the 1752 Liberty Bell, the Founding Fathers of the 18th century, the abolitionist and civil rights movements, the 1886 Statue of Liberty and contemporary USA, which is the most Judeo-Christian Western democracy.

For instance, according to a June 3, 2011 Gallup poll, 92% of Americans believe in God. Most polls determine that 80% believe that Judeo-Christian values constitute the foundations of the American culture.

On October 31, 2011, the US House of Representatives voted 396-9, reaffirming “In God We Trust” (IGWT) as a national motto. President Eisenhower signed this into law on July 30, 1956.

A daily prayer starts deliberations in the House of Representatives; more than 40% of Americans participate in Sunday church services; the number of Christian TV stations has surged from nine in 1974 to almost 300 in 2013; fifteen million copies of the Bible are sold annually; over 80% of Americans wish to retain “one nation under God” in the pledge of allegiance, consistent with “endowed by the Creator” in the Declaration of Independence.

The seeds of Judeo-Christian USA were planted in 1382, when John Wycliffe, an Oxford professor, produced the first English language Bible manuscript, making it available to the public at-large. Wycliffe’s groundbreaking initiative inspired the Puritan movement, which was the hub of the early 17th century Bible-oriented Pilgrims who landed in America.

In 1620 and 1630, the “Mayflower” and the “Arabella” docked in “the modern day Promised Land.” They departed from England – the “modern day Egypt” – rebelled against their “modern day Pharaoh” and sailed through the “modern day Red Sea.” The Pilgrims referred to their mission in Biblical terms, referring to John Winthrop, the commander of the Arabella, as “the American Nehemiah.”

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/extremist-muslim-moderates-and-moderate-muslim-extremists/print/

Like a band that only knows one song, politicians only know one response to Islamic terrorism. They wall off that vast majority of Muslims who did not actually come down to Woolwich and hack at a soldier with a machete and did not fly two planes into the World Trade Center from those who actually did. The hackers and pilots are extremists. The couch potatoes watching at home and cheering them on are moderates.

That might be fine if we were discussing a gas station robbery in Cleveland. But to Muslims, Jihad isn’t an act of violence; it’s an act of faith.

Islamic terrorism isn’t a crime. It’s a form of religious warfare that goes back all the way to its founding. Islam sanctifies crime and violence as acts of worship and that is why its acts of terror do not occur in isolation. It is never the act of a single madman, because its intents and ambitions are communal.

When a Muslim kills a Non-Muslim for the religious reasons of Jihad, whether he is a lone wolf or a member of a large cell, the act cannot be divorced from its goals for the larger Islamic community. No Muslim terrorist is an island. His terrorism is a communal activity that takes place within the context of an Islamic manifest destiny. He does not kill for himself. He takes the lives of others and offers his own life in the name of a historical idea of theocracy and supremacy.

The distinction between action and inaction is meaningless. It’s the distinctions between active support, passive support and direct opposition that matter. Those Muslims who support both the ends and the means of Muslim terrorism are active supporters. Those who support the ends of Islamic theocracy, but not the means of Islamic terrorism, can be labeled passive supporters. And the tiny minority of secular extremists who oppose both the ends and the means are the direct opposition.

http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2013/05/30/blogging-from-the-51st-state-day-1/?print=1 I arrived in Israel Thursday afternoon — I think it was Thursday, hard to tell with a ten hour difference — and almost immediately took a walk along the Tel Aviv beach to clear my brain. It didn’t. But Sheryl, Madeleine, and I pushed on, anxious to acclimate ourselves to Israeli time. It was […]

http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/saturday-people-sunday-people-ruth-king.html

An underreported tragedy of the Middle East is the persecution and exodus of Christian communities that have lived there for centuries, some for millennia, well before the advent of Islam. The irony is that today Israel is the only country where the Christian population is growing. The sorry exception is in the Arab controlled regions of Judea and Samaria.

Lela Gilbert, in her inspiring book Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel through the Eyes of

a Christian Sojourner, describes her life in a country she came to visit but now makes her home.

Although Gilbert grew up in a family supportive of Israel, for her the defining moment was Israel’s triumph in the 1967 War–whose 46th anniversary will be celebrated on June 5th this year. She watched with concern as, in the following decades, Israel’s enemies increased in number, with Muslims joined by fellow travellers throughout the world, including the leadership of the mainline churches who shrugged off the fiercest faith driven diatribes against Jews, Christians and other “infidels.”

Alarmed by these trends, in 2006 Gilbert decided to visit the land that fascinated her as a writer and as a practicing Christian. To her family’s surprise and to Israel’s great benefit, Gilbert would be no ordinary tourist. She rented a flat in Jerusalem and began her sojourn. She currently divides her time between Jerusalem and California.

What is amazing about this book is the way Lela Gilbert resonates to Israel’s dangers, its security concerns, its diversity, its army, its vitality and its destiny, feeling them as her own. In her words: “….I came with the conviction that an assault upon Jews is an implicit assault upon Christians, since it strikes at the root of the same ancient tree.” She experiences the hypocrisy, the lies and libels of the world’s “enlightened” elite; she feels horror at the unspeakable jihadist terrorists who murdered the Fogel family including women and babies in their beds. She absorbs “the heavy weight of sadness pressed against the whole country.” She also has witnessed the fear of Christians in PA-ruled Bethlehem, similar to the fear of Christians throughout the Muslim world–in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Indonesia, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

But Lela Gilbert also experiences the holiness of Israel, the eternal miracle of the Sabbath in Jerusalem, the joys of Passover and Sukkot, the renewal and commitment of Tisha B’av and the optimism that pulses through Israel with the belief that the best is still to come.

With the Bible as her GPS, Gilbert has visited every corner of Israel and spoken to Israelis–and Arabs–from every background. She has visited the “settlements” of Judea and Samaria–from the handsome villas of the towns to the hilltop “outposts” where she went to ancient wine cellars as well as new vineyards on the windswept hills. In Gilbert’s words: “For a number of reasons, the passage in the bible referring to the Israelites coming into the land and claiming their land has held important personal meaning for me.”

Ruthie Blum, the American born Israeli journalist and our mutual friend, has described Lela Gilbert thus: “Lela is what I call ‘one of us.’ She gets it about America, and she gets it about Israel. She is a rare breed who, upon her arrival in Israel, immediately grasped that the issues in both countries are very similar. It is not only that, as a pro-Israel Christian, she has a belief in the justice of the Jewish homeland. It’s more complicated than that. She actually understands the threat to democracy and free cultures that radical Islam poses. Aside from that, she managed to become socially enmeshed in Jerusalem society in a way that even many Jews who immigrate here have difficulty doing. She’s a real treasure.”

Gilbert writes that during her first days in Israel she visited a shop on Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda Street. The owner was curious about her as a writer and as a Christian who would come during the war in Lebanon. He gave her a gift–a silver Star of David–with the words: “It is my way of saying thank you for being with us.”

I can only add “Thank you Lela Gilbert, for this book.”